Yuki-onna to Shinso
by Akemi Homura-san
Summary: Fate is a strange thing. It, like many tyrants, forces all to cater to its insatiable caprice. A twist of fate sees seven-year-old Aono Tsukune dying-a scene interrupted by a certain observer, who offers to save the child's life. So begins a new story, twisted and contorted by the unyielding skein of destiny-a story of the last Shinso, and how he came to be.
1. Introductory Arc Part 1

When seven-year-old Aono Tsukune ran into the forest to retrieve his friends' baseball, it was an impulse stimulated by little more than a sense of innocent daring, not a suicide attempt. When the rain began and his visibility began to suffer, it was not due to any willingness to die that he did not turn back, but rather a steely resolve to retrieve the ball. It occurred to him that this was awful far for a ball to fly, but Sanageyama-kun was an excellent hitter, and to him, it wasn't impossible for it to have bounced and rolled. This was abetted by the fact that the forest made him lose all sense of time as he ran through the dark, forbidding wood.

There are tales that men meet the Devil at a crossroads, that the Prince of Darkness tempts them when it is their time to make a choice between two courses. Perhaps they are true, and perhaps not; what _is_ true is that the young boy did not see the cliff he fell off of until he had run over the edge of it, blinded by the lashing of branches and the falling of rain. He felt weightless as he fell, a strange, pleasant feeling not at all unlike flying, then each twig and rock on the ground below him as he hit it and bounced and rolled down into the ravine, breaking many of the bones in his small body and sending shards of them through his skin, causing pain to lance through him with each involuntary move he made. It was, in a word, agony.

There are also those who say that the Devil comes upon those who are about to die before their time; and really, who can say what the vampire was actually doing in those woods? But for whatever reason, the vampire appeared before the young boy at that very instant, his fine, Italian-made black leather dress boots crunching onto the twigs and dead leaves in front of Aono Tsukune's face. "Well, well, well, what have we here?" he asked rhetorically, the expression on his face both bemused and amused as he crouched down so that the boy would not need to look up at him, and thus do damage to his neck in the process. "Aono Tsukune, is it not? _You_ are the boy who was fated to fight me. But here you are, about to die-and we cannot have _that,_ can we? The Fates' caprice is truly unacceptable, and I find it abhorrent that a boy with such a beautiful will that he would come all the way out here in this weather for _this_ "-he produced Sanageyama's ball from his long black coat-"should die for his commendable resolve. And so, in recognition of that, I offer you a choice, Tsukune-kun: you are about to die, and I am the only one who can save you. Would you like for me to do so?"

Tsukune took a moment to think about it, and then nodded his head as vigorously as he could without causing undue amounts of pain.

The vampire smiled, baring his long, narrow fangs. "Well then, Tsukune-kun," he said as he gently sat down upon his coat and pulled Tsukune's neck into his lap. "I do believe this is the part where you're supposed to close your eyes."

Tsukune replied with a weak " _Hai_ " that burned his lungs to say, then squeezed his eyes shut against the pain; before long, he felt another pain, just a pair of pinpricks at first, at the side of his neck, followed by another pair of somewhat more painful pinpricks anchoring themselves into the other side of his throat so that his spine was caught in between the vampire's jaws. With his grip on the boy's neck was secure, he began drinking his blood while injecting his own into the boy's body with his fangs. An excruciating agony unlike any other held Tsukune in its grip and refused to let him go as his bones moved themselves back into alignment and then snapped themselves into place, causing his body to contort and jolt against his will as the vampire's blood raced its way through his veins and commanded his body to heal itself. It continued for quite some time, as the damage that had been done was substantial, but as the ratio of human to vampire blood tipped in favor of the latter, it happened faster and faster; by time the transfer was complete, and the vampire's blood had completely overwritten his own, carving its code into every cell in his body, not an ounce of human blood remained therein. Aono Tsukune, a seven-year-old boy with average talents in almost all scholastic respects, was an immortal vampire.

"Well, now that that's done," said the vampire, standing up with the help of his walking stick and helping the boy to his feet as well. "You are now a vampire of the Shinso bloodline, my dear Tsukune-kun. Come, there is much work to do, and you have a great deal to learn before you'll be ready for it-ready for Yōkai Academy-and as your creator, I have a responsibility to teach it to you. You will be my heir-heir to all my power and knowledge."

Tsukune nodded, unaware of the cosmetic changes that had been effected upon his body, but knowing the truth of the information the elder vampire was giving him. "I have one question, Master; who _are_ you?"

The elder vampire threw his head back in laughter before calming down enough to speak. "Well, I certainly _do_ have you at a disadvantage, now don't I, kid?" he chuckled to himself. He thrust a hand out to Tsukune, and said, "It's a pleasure to meet you, Tsukune-kun. My name is Fujisaki Miyabi, and I am your master. Now, are you ready to begin, Aono Tsukune?"

Tsukune nodded.

* * *

Shuzen Akua was not a girl many people could surprise. Ever since Jasmine died, she was rarely irked or taken aback by the evils and injustices of the world. So when her grandfather walked into the building with a small boy in tow, she was shocked and horrified far more that she was shocked and horrified than she was actually shocked and horrified. Even more so when she noticed the strange markers on him; his eyes were blood-red and slitted like a cat's, and his hair was silver-markers of vampirism. Recently turned, too; she could tell by how awestruck the boy was. He had never seen this kind of splendour before, it seemed. Akua found it odd that she didn't expect her grandfather to be the type to pick up strays. In retrospect, it seemed somewhat obvious.

"Akua, this is Aono Tsukune. Tsukune, this is my granddaughter, Shuzen Akua," Miyabi said as they approached to an appropriate distance for introductions to be made. "Say hello, kid."

"Konbanwa, Akua-sama. Yoroshiku onegaishimasu," said the seven-year-old vampire with a respectful bow.

"Ojii-sama, what is the meaning of this?" Akua asked, suddenly feeling quite out of her depth with her grandfather's newfound hobby of taking in a stray vampire.

"Well, it's simple," Miyabi said, pulling a cigarette from the box in the inside pocket of his long black leather coat. "You see, I found Tsukune while I was out walking. He was about to die, and so I fixed that issue. You can see the results for yourself. The boy is a proper Shinso now that the change has taken hold, but by the same token, he shouldn't really be involved in any strenuous activity for at least a day, if only to let his body adjust to its newly elevated parametres." Seeing Akua's blank look, he nonetheless continued. "I've decided to recruit him to our side, and seeing as I don't really trust anyone here at Fairy Tale to tie their own shoelaces without written instructions and a practical demonstration or three, the duty of training him falls to you."

"Why me?" asked Akua, folding her arms and taking a cautiously aggressive stance; she didn't want to push her luck with the Shinso who stood before her.

She needn't have worried. Fujisaki Miyabi was many things, but without a sense of humour wasn't one of them. He merely chuckled as he lit his cigarette, taking a deep breath in, and exhaling a solid gust of smoke. "Well, you see, it's like this, Akua-chan. In the state the kid is in, developmentally speaking-both as a human and a vampire-he just wouldn't survive my training. You on the other hand have a chance of actually teaching him something without ending his life somewhat… _prematurely_. You will teach him how to be a vampire worthy of his bloodline over the course of the next year. Once you've done that, he's going to be going out on missions, at first with you, and then solo, for the next two years-one year each. And then finally, when I feel that the kid's strong enough not to die in the first session with me, he will be admitted into my _special_ training, learning the kind of power that Holy Locks were made to contain. Get it?"

"And he gets the special training instead of me because…?"

"Because it's not for you," said Miyabi, his eyes now devoid of mirth and deathly serious, and the crooked half-smile on his face as he smoked made his expression all the more terrifying. "You have reached the pinnacle of your fighting technique. There's nothing left to mould. It would only break you, and thus make you useless to me-and to Moka."

"Fine," she said, conceding not because of his words, but because of the absolute death his eyes promised to any who stood against him. It was in moments like these that Akua was reminded of just who her grandfather was and what he represented. "I'll train the boy. Starting tomorrow." She looked to the small child, and he seemed very much exhausted by the events of the day. Her grandfather was right; she could see how much strain the transformation from a human to a _Shinso,_ of all things, had put on his little body, and if they pushed him any further before he had the chance to get a decent rest, they would break him. Shinso or not, everything has a breaking point, and some things, in spite of their inherent power-or perhaps as a consequence of it-were more fragile than others.

"Excellent," said Miyabi, performing an act that most would think of as unthinkable to someone like him and picking up the exhausted boy, who immediately began to nod off. "First thing tomorrow, I'll get him fitted for a Holy Lock. Shinso blood is all well and good, but if it's not given time to incubate and mature, all we get is a normal vampire, and we don't want that."

"I thought Mikogami was an enemy of Fairy Tale-and of you," Akua pointed out.

"He is. But Mikogami's not the only one who knows how to seal away massive amounts of power, nor is unlocking one's full potential a skill exclusive to Toho Fuhai," he explained. "I can do both, quite possibly better than they can, especially since I've forgotten more about how Shinso blood works than the both of them combined have ever-and likely ever will have-discovered. But let's not worry about that. Right now, let's let the kid get some rest. He's going to need it."

* * *

Tsukune awoke to an unfamiliar ceiling. He would have bolted upright in a panic if the memories of what had happened the day before had not come flooding in the instant he finished thinking about how unfamiliar the ceiling was. He was where his master had put him after the strange events of the previous day. In fact, were he not contemplating the visual evidence to the contrary, he might have thought that the previous day's goings-on had just been one strange dream.

He tried to slip out of bed, but collapsed into a heap at the foot of it. Suddenly his legs would no longer support him. He tried to reach out to the wall, but found that his strength, his ability to move, was gone. "Ah, yes, I ought to have explained that this might happen," came the now-familiar voice of his master from the far corner of the room. Now that Tsukune could pay attention, he realised that his tone was strange-like he was the only one on earth that understood some great cosmic joke, and now derived amusement from the attempts of others to get the joke. This was a voice unused to kindness or compassion. "Sorry, kid."

There was a clicking of shoes on the hardwood floor, and then a surprisingly strong set of arms lifting him up and back into bed. He felt his master open up his mouth, and pour in a liquid that had a strange sourness to it, as if it was highly acidic. "What's happening now is that now that your body has stopped rejecting the change that my blood brings, it's been rewritten. The catch is that all the fatigue your body accrued from attempting to fight the transformation stays. And that includes the stress from the injuries you had sustained when I found you. I'm feeding you my blood because the transformation is not complete, and I want to postpone it until your body is strong enough to handle the final stages of metamorphosis. Adding in more of my blood will do that. I can give you something to postpone the final few changes, but you're eventually going to have to go out and drink human blood, or else your body won't recover properly, and when the lock fails, as it inevitably will, your body will mutate into that which we call a 'ghoul'. That is what we want to avoid at all costs."

Tsukune wished he had the ability to nod in understanding, even knowing that even if he did, actually completing the action would have been a lie. There was a lot of information being thrown at him, and his seven-year-old brain could only take so much of it in at a time. Thankfully, his master seemed to understand, reaching over and mussing up his hair. "Don't worry, kid. I'll tell it to you again when you're older-and able to understand at least half of what I'm talking about." Tsukune managed a weak smile in reply-as a sign of gratitude to his master, the one who had saved his life. "Can you walk?"

Tsukune attempted once again to get his legs to support him, and they did-albeit barely. "Where are we going?" he asked.

"Well, kid, we're going to see someone about getting you what you need," Fujisaki said in response.

Later that day, Tsukune was sitting in the gardens, toying with the length of chain that encircled his small, thin arm, especially the little charm on the end of it, which looked to bear a strange, five-pointed star surrounded by a picture of a dragon eating its own tail. This was, as his master explained it, a 'Holy Lock'. The analogy Fujisaki had used was that it was like a set of training wheels on a bicycle, and that eventually, like training wheels, they would come off in time, as he learned to control his newfound powers. Tsukune didn't really care much about that, though, as he was much more excited to learn that he could walk unaided again.

This was where and in what state Akua found him. For the first time, Tsukune could take Akua in without exhaustion making his vision blurry and the memories of their first encounter somewhat hazy. She was beautiful, with black hair cascading down her shoulders and attired in a strange sort of coat, though the fact that she wore a frilled white shirt underneath was made obvious by the fact that the sleeves were white and of a different material than the coat. "So, Aono-kun, was it?"

"Just call me Tsukune. Everyone does," replied the innocent-looking seven-year-old child sitting before her with a cherubic smile-one that was marred by the fact that he wore such a strange-looking Holy Lock, which, to Akua, spelled nothing but trouble. She had learned to take that which was unfamiliar and treat it with caution years ago, and so she did precisely that.

"Tsukune-kun, then. Follow me," Akua ordered him, a touch curtly. There was only one person who she would regard as a younger sibling, and it wasn't this black-haired, relatively plain-faced shota.

Tsukune nodded and followed, but did ask, "Where are we going?"

"The gym," Akua said, her response somewhat short. "Today is the day you start your training, remember?"

"Training?!" Tsukune's eyes lit up. "Are you going to teach me to be like Kenshin?!"

"Who?" she asked flatly.

"Himura Kenshin," he said, suddenly a bit shy. "From _Rurouni Kenshin_?"

"No, Tsukune-kun. I'm not going to teach you to be like an anime character. I _am,_ however, going to teach you how to _survive._ "

Tsukune fell silent after that, for which Akua was grateful. Talking to this child, so small and innocent, triggered unpleasant memories about what had happened to both Jasmine and Moka, the only two people she had ever truly loved, and so she was glad to have the quiet.

The pall of silence between the two vampires in short order became so thick that it could be cut through, such that it was even beginning to irk Akua, and so she was ironically quite glad to shatter it when they reached the door to the gym. "Ah, here we are," she said finally, and the sound was as refreshing as a cool breeze on a stuffy day. She proceeded to the centre of the mat that covered the floor, and she encouraged Tsukune to enter in behind her. Not even his pouting could stop him from gawking at the immense space, empty of equipment or sounds of inhabitants anywhere in the vicinity save herself and Tsukune. Truthfully, 'gym' was a touch inaccurate, as the only exercise that went on in this room was sparring-hence the necessity for space.

Once they were well-situated, Akua began. "Tsukune-kun, you're young, and so we'll have to start with the basics. Your first task will be to hit me."

"Hit…you?" asked Tsukune, confused.

"Yes. Come up to me and hit me," she said clearly.

Tsukune, still perplexed, walked up to her and threw a punch. He almost tripped when his fist failed to connect with anything, though the light shove from behind wasn't really helping anything. He whirled around, and there was Akua, waiting impatiently. "Well? Hit me!"

Tsukune ran up to her and tried to punch, but again, all he encountered was air. That, and another light shove. He looked around, and she was directly to his right. He punched, and suddenly she was on his left, pushing him lightly.

This continued for several hours, as the child punched and punched and never connected, because at the moment of impact, Akua was already gone, and he was only punching air. He continued getting more and more flustred and frustrated with every missed attack, until he was on the verge of tears. The next thing he knew, he felt a swift pull on his legs, and suddenly he was on his back, staring up at the ceiling of the gym, and Akua's riding boot was on his throat. "That's enough for today, Tsukune-kun. Go wash up." With that, she stepped back, releasing the pressure on his neck, and walked away.

Tsukune laid there and cried tears of anger for hours, but no-one came to help him.

Akua herself stopped when she saw her grandfather lurking in the doorway. "I suppose you're about to question my methods-say I'm being too hard on the boy?" she asked rhetorically as she stopped to talk to him.

Fujisaki Miyabi just chuckled and took a draw off his cigarette before exhaling the thick white smoke. "If I were, I would like to think that I had enough common sense not to say anything, considering that I'd be pushing him twice as hard as you are, and thereby wind up breaking him entirely."

"Figures," she said with a mirthless half-smile. "That should have been exactly what I expected you to say, given your station."

"Of course," said Fujisaki. "The kid'll catch on quickly, and then you'll not only have taught him something, but also have made him tougher in the process."

"'What doesn't kill you makes you stronger'?" she quoted.

Her grandfather only gave her his crooked half-smile. "Precisely."

* * *

Tsukune's "training" continued like this for several days. Every day, it was the same exercise in seeming-impossibility. No matter how hard he tried, how quickly he reacted, nor how frustrated he became, his blows still hit only air. It had come to the point where he began to dread training, but Akua would not settle for half-measures. No matter where he hid, she found him, dragged him to the gym, and forced him to do the pointless exercise again and again, until his seven-year-old mind could take no more stress, which was when she ended it-just on the edge of him losing control of his emotions. She never bothered to push him over that edge. That final plunge into hot, angry, shameful tears was his own, and no-one else's.

After a week of this torture, he would have been ready to give up-and more than once he had almost done so-but something instinctual, intrinsic and primal in him refused to surrender to this pointless, impossible task. But even that ironclad resolve was beginning to waver, and if something didn't change soon, it might break entirely. Thankfully, however, on the eighth day, things changed completely.

"Today we're going to try something a bit more advanced: evasion. Instead of hitting me, I want you to avoid _getting_ hit," Akua said that day. Tsukune was relieved that the task had changed, but felt an unfamiliar emotion at the announcement. That emotion was one he would come to know as 'wariness.'

Then he felt the sudden certainty that Akua was right behind him. Following his instincts, he did precisely that, and Akua's attack rushed over his head. "Good," she said. "Again." And again, the sudden certainty that Akua was to his right flared up. He bent backwards to avoid the strike, and it sailed across his supine torso. "Good. Again!" He ducked his head and crossed his arms over it in a defensive stance, and in an instant, he felt a profound impact on his arms. He looked up, and saw that his arms had caught Akua's foot. She had drop-kicked him, and he had blocked it. "Perfect. Now hit me." Tsukune didn't respond. Akua was there and disappeared to appear somewhere else for about an hour. Before she moved in to end it, however, Tsukune leapt over her leg sweep and drove a knee into her body, and, committed as it was to the attack, she could not evade.

Tsukune had finally hit her.

"Very good," said Akua as she got back to her feet. "You've learned the first lesson: how to sense killing intent. Over time, you'll learn to sense yoki in general, but killing intent is a good place to start."

"Is that why I had to hit you?" Tsukune asked.

"Yes. I thought to train you to predict where an enemy was going to be through detecting their yoki. But as I said, killing intent is a good start," Akua said. "That's quite enough for today. Go wash up. We'll start on the real training tomorrow."

Tsukune nodded, but no longer was he excited. In fact, he felt somewhat… _numb._ It was as though the stress of the past week had crashed against the satisfaction and happiness he felt at completing the task set before him, and in that crash, neutralised each other. He proceeded woodenly to the locker room and cleansed himself in herb-treated water, and walked out, not even noticing his master's presence, let alone his smirk, as he left.

* * *

"He has potential," Akua said finally, biting the words out as if each one was a personal affront to her and her honour.

"What'd I tell you? The kid's going places," replied Fujisaki as he lit up another cigarette and took a draw on it. "In fact, if trained correctly, the kid could one day surpass even me."

"And even _knowing_ that, you elected to save his life?" Akua asked in incredulity.

"Yep. In fact, I'm _counting_ on it," Fujisaki said with a half-smile. "That's why I'm going to ensure that he gets the training he needs to reach that point."

"You're planning something…" Akua said, her tone thick with suspicion.

"But of course. When am I not?" he responded glibly. "To the point, I thought it past time that I selected an heir."

"And why not me?" Akua asked, not offended-simply curious.

"You count yourself as being amongst the Shuzen family, and you ask me that?" Fujisaki answered, deathly serious. "Moreover, quite frankly, you wouldn't make the cut. Surpassing me requires a level of resolve you simply do not possess. Tsukune does. I simply have to mould him correctly, and he will be a Shinso worthy of the title and the bloodline." And suddenly his face became a smirk once more. "Don't ask questions you wouldn't like the answers to, kid. It'll keep you out of trouble."

"I see," said Akua. "Then should I press him harder?"

"Press him as far as you see necessary, with the understanding that if you break him…" and here Fujisaki took the cigarette out of his mouth and indicated her with it, with eyes filled with promises of pain and misery, "...you'll answer to me."

"I understand," said Akua, backing down. He was correct in that no tool she had in her arsenal, no technique she had ever mastered, would be enough to destroy the vampire before her.

"For your sake, I hope you do, kid. I hope you do."

* * *

Fujisaki Miyabi enjoyed taking walks every now and again. It was usually quiet, and a way to get away from the incessant squawking of the other subdivision heads, as well as the Queen Bitch herself, Shuzen Gyokuro. It was on one of these walks, in fact, that he had come across the boy who would defeat him-now his heir. However, this walk wasn't nearly as restful as the other walks he had taken over the years, and that was by design.

Normally, he would start in a little village at the base of a mountain and walk through the woods that lay at that mountain's feet. Sometimes, he would even climb the mountain and take in the cool air at the summit, and maybe rest there awhile. Now, however, he had something in particular he wanted to check up on, and so he went to the suburb where an unassuming family that had, until recently, had a very unassuming son dwelled. His cane rapped on the concrete sidewalk as he explored the neighbourhood, and took in the amount of signs there were. 'Have you seen this boy,' they all seemed to say in one fashion or another. The entire situation seemed quaint to him-quaint enough to evoke a chuckle out of him every now and again.

However, he knew that this walk would have to be over prematurely, and had known it when he had embarked upon it. He looked up into the air, a cigarette in his mouth, and laughed. Then he turned around and acknowledged the large font of yoki that had appeared behind him. "It's a wonderful night, isn't it, Kahlua?" he remarked glibly as he turned to face the fair-haired, dark-skinned vampire behind him. "The moonlight is lovely, and all the chirping of the mortal insects provides a very peaceful natural backdrop."

"Okaa-sama wishes to speak with you," said Kahlua. "She sent me to fetch you."

"Oh, did she now?" he asked rhetorically and with mock-surprise. "Well, then. I suppose I'd best abandon whatever I'm doing and dance to your mother's tune, eh, Kahlua?" The barb was wasted on the other vampire, but the catharsis of having said it almost made it worth it in Miyabi's estimation. _Almost._

Moments later, they had returned to the floating fortress that was the headquarters of the organisation known as 'Fairy Tale.' Miyabi did his best to quash his impatience with the insolent bitch who dared order him around like some trained attack dog as he appeared in her presence. She turned in the chair she was sitting in to regard him, her uniform coat only loosely on her shoulders overtop her black cocktail dress. He, however, kept his carefully-guarded expression of smug superiority on his face. He would not give Gyokuro the satisfaction of visibly expressing his displeasure with a worm like her giving _him_ orders.

"There is a rumour floating about that says that you have taken a new apprentice," Gyokuro began in her voice that was meant to sound seductive and authoritative but instead came off as grating and shrill. "But that can't be. One of my division heads couldn't be acting without authorisation, could he?"

"I wouldn't call him an apprentice as much as I would a protégé, Shuzen-sama," Miyabi replied with the same unreadable expression of mild boredom, even as he took another draw off his cigarette. "An heir, if you would."

"And you thought you could do such a thing without _my_ approval?" she asked.

"When last I checked, the ability to deny a vampire the right to procreate is not one of the powers the head of Fairy Tale possesses," replied Miyabi, a note of danger in his voice. "Thus, it is not incumbent upon me to get your approval to do such a thing."

"Nevertheless, you have caught my attention, Fujisaki. I _will_ be watching you."

He suppressed the urge to roll his eyes. "Watch all you like, Shuzen-sama. At the end of the day, however, I would have you remember that what Tsukune is and what he becomes is _my_ business, not _yours._ Now, if you will excuse me, I _was_ having a walk just now." With that, Miyabi rapped his cane against the floor of the floating fortress, and was gone.

Miyabi took in a sigh as he ran a shaking hand through his black hair. The hand was shaking not in fear, but in anger. The current head of Fairy Tale was getting on his last nerve. She represented everything he despised about the depths to which his race hand sunken over the past two hundred years. She possessed an arrogance about her, a certain hauteur, that she carried even though she was not worthy of it. She was decadent, petty and vindictive. The days of vampires as the noblest of monsters had come and gone. In that moment, however, Fujisaki Miyabi committed himself to ensuring that Tsukune never ended up like that disgraceful bitch-never fell into the trap of believing his superiority came not from skill or power, but from the simple fact of his race. To that end, he decided to add to the special training regimen he was planning for his heir. By the time that Tsukune was ready to be planted in Yokai Academy, he swore that the boy would be devoid of all those qualities that made Miyabi despise his own race.

It was in that moment that the wheels of fate once again began to turn…


	2. Introductory Arc Part 2

"Ototo, watch my back," Akua ordered shortly. "And try not to get in the way." Tsukune nodded his affirmation of the order as he made contact with the rooftop, rolling to diffuse the force of his impact. He hit the ground running side-by-side with Akua, and split off to find a good vantage point of the operation zone.

Much had happened in the year since Tsukune had been rescued by his vampiric master; the training with Akua had been long and intense, but now he was being trusted to go on missions with the woman whom, over the last year, he had come to regard as an older sister. This one just so happened to be his first. He managed to calm his nerves by remembering his training. Just to be certain, however, he checked himself over. He was garbed in a lightweight suit of body armour, over which he wore a long black coat not unlike the one his master preferred to wear. He checked his weapons-his handheld crossbow was still there, as were his throwing knives, his gas pellets, his whip, his lines and his silver tanto. The weapons he had selected himself, not entirely certain what he would need for a mission. His arsenal would become less haphazard as he learned what tools he was most comfortable with using. All the same, he slipped the nigh-featureless white mask on over his face as he observed the scene going on below him.

The mission was simple: deal with a group of Ayashi who dared refuse to join Fairy Tale. Neither his master nor his surrogate sister seemed especially keen on the mission, but as the order came from on high, there was little and less they could do than obey. As Tsukune watched, the Ayashi came down the road leading to the plaza, seeming quite drunk. They stopped in the plaza as they saw Akua, standing there and waiting for them.

Watching his surrogate sister take on eight Ayashi at once really made Tsukune think about how much she had been holding back when she was training him day-in and day-out. She was all but still, and yet like a whirlwind, death came to those she faced. There was no trading of blows, no evasion and reaction-she simply struck, and their blood painted the walls. It seemed like the mission was an open-and-shut case. That was, of course, before Tsukune felt a vortex of killing intent approaching. "Akua-nee!" he shouted as he leapt into the plaza with her.

"What?" Akua spat, whipping her head around to glare at the boy whom she had come to see as a little brother.

"Jump!" he cried, and when she looked up, she saw why.

By the time the leaping werewolf impacted the plaza, the two vampires were in the air. Tsukune drew six of his throwing knives, three for each hand, and launched them at the werewolf as his arc neared its apex. Each of them hit, but the werewolf shrugged the injuries off. Until, of course, the lines connected to the throwing knives went taut, and launched Tsukune back at the werewolf, where he put both his feet into the werewolf's face. The werewolf staggered at that, and Tsukune leapt off of him, flipped back, and _pulled._

In choosing his loadout for his first mission, his master had come by to help. He rarely got to see his master, instead spending most of the day with Akua, but that had changed the moment the first anniversary of meeting his master and becoming a vampire had come and passed. As his master put it, "Silver knives are undoubtedly better for hurting a yokai, but regular steel knives have more utility. "

"But Shisho, aren't most yokai immune to steel?" Tsukune had asked.

His master had given him a smirk and ruffled his hair. "Steel will pierce anything that doesn't have a carapace. Silver and cold iron halt the regenerative process most Ayashi and some yokai have developed, and there are a number of situations I can think of where such a thing is disadvantageous." When Tsukune had looked at him blankly, he had chuckled. "Think of it this way. Silver and cold iron hurts and doesn't heal. Steel hurts, and then gives you purchase."

Tsukune owed his master a debt of gratitude. He saw it now. The steel knives wouldn't come out because the werewolf's flesh had regenerated around the knife, so that his throwing knives were like hooks on a fish. When he was able to reel in the werewolf, he knew that metaphor to be more apt than most.

Unfortunately, Tsukune's luck ran out when the werewolf shook off the blow to its head and figured out what the eight-year-old vampire was trying to do. He grabbed Tsukune's lines and pulled.

It should be noted at this point that Tsukune was a vampire. Even with the Holy Lock, he was faster, stronger and more agile than any human, regardless of age. However, one thing that vampirism does not impart, no matter the bloodline, was immunity to Newtonian physics. This is relevant because the werewolf had significantly more mass than Tsukune, and so when it pulled the line, he pulled Tsukune with it, driving its half-canine knee into his abdomen, rupturing several organs in the process with the impact. Tsukune's eyes went wide with agony, and he coughed up blood before he went flying back into the building behind him.

" _Tsukune!_ " cried Akua before she even realised she was doing it. She rushed over to the werewolf, eyes set on saving her little brother. She needn't have worried at that point, however, because Tsukune came running back out with a battle-cry and inhuman fury in his suddenly quite red eyes. He pulled out his tanto and rammed it into the werewolf where he assumed the heart would be. This is the point at which Akua ought to have been worried, not because Tsukune's conjecture on the subject of werewolf anatomy was _wrong,_ per se; simply that he had not the correct tool for the job. To put it bluntly, the tanto was too short to fully pierce the heart. This left Tsukune in close proximity to a monster several times his age and mass that had gone feral due to the excruciating pain of having a silver-bladed tanto rammed into his body.

Fortunately, Akua jumping the gun on what was worrisome about Tsukune's condition proved useful, as just before the werewolf went to get its revenge, Akua's flying kick snapped its neck, killing it.

A few minutes later, as the two of them had caught their breath, Tsukune began gathering up his weapons, making mental notes of what worked and what didn't in preparation for the debriefing, as that would most certainly be one of the questions his master asked. Akua, on the other hand, was quietly furious. The mission was supposed to be a routine op, with only Ayashi to kill, not S-class yokai, and that irked her. The intelligence she had gotten about a mission had never been wrong to this extent before. She knew that she hadn't trained Tsukune to take on S-class monsters like werewolves, and so the fact that he was alive spoke volumes of either his potential or his luck-Akua wasn't sure which. But she stowed her anger to vent later. Right now, she had a little brother to look after.

"Tsukune-kun, are you alright?" she asked point blank.

"Still regenerating, Onee-sama," he said with a pained grimace. "The werewolf's knee did a lot of internal damage, but I should…be… _fine_ …" With that, he promptly passed out on the pavement. Akua ran over to the boy and picked him up, carrying his unconscious body to the extraction point. And sure enough, there was Fujisaki hanging out of the helicopter, not smoking and looking genuinely concerned for once. He got out of the helicopter, picked up Tsukune from her arms, and took him into the helicopter. Akua got in after him, and the vehicle ascended.

"How is he?" Akua asked.

"He'll live," said Fujisaki. "But only just. We need to get him drinking blood more regularly-and not the blood bags he's been drinking from over the past year. He needs it fresh and often if he's going to be consistently regenerating damage of this extent. Though, this wasn't a difficult mission. What did you kids run into out there?"

"The Ayashi had a leader. A werewolf," Akua explained.

Fujisaki's eyes narrowed. "So our glorious leader sent you out after an S-class yokai?" he asked, as if digesting it. "Rest assured that this won't happen again. Stupid paranoid bitch almost ruined everything."

"What are you going to do? Gyokuro doesn't take orders from you," Akua pointed out.

"What I cannot do, the Masked King can," Fujisaki said enigmatically.

* * *

Tsukune awoke once again to the unfamiliar ceiling of the infirmary. He tried to sit up, but a gentle though firm hand kept him down. "Don't. Your abdominal muscles only just finished regenerating. We don't want to tax them into rupturing again."

He knew that voice… "A-Akua-nee?" he asked.

"Hai," she replied, standing up from her seat by his bedside and leaning over him, coming into his line of sight.

"Ah. Good. You're awake. Both of you," the familiar voice of Fujisaki Miyabi rang out. "If nothing else, at least your first mission will make a great story to laugh about later." His master leaned over him as well, nodding at what he saw. "So, here's the deal. As much as I'd love to make this a bonding exercise between the three of us, there is unfortunately the matter of the debriefing. Now, Akua told me a lot of what happened. The Ayashi showed up on schedule, Akua here minced them, and then a werewolf showed up-that you, Tsukune, decided to take on. Alone. While I'd love to commend you for your balls of steel on that score, I am obligated as your creator to ask you not to do that again. At least, not until you _can_ go toe-to-toe with a werewolf and come out unscathed. That point, however, is a few years off."

"But…it was going to hurt Akua-nee…" Tsukune protested.

"And you thought she couldn't take it on alone because…?" Fujisaki said dryly. "Look, kid, none of us are heroes here. We're yokai-monsters. While heroes might fight alone, we as yokai are pragmatic creatures, which is why you see a lot of old yokai and not a lot of old heroes. And even if we _were_ heroes, Akua here isn't called the perfect assassin for nothing, kid. She can handle herself. _You,_ however, cannot. Not yet, at least." Fujisaki took a moment to let that sink in for the eight-year-old before he proceeded. "Now, as to the subject of your equipment. What worked, what didn't, and what can I work up for you that _will_ work?"

"I tried the lines-and-knives trick. I'm too small for it to work right," Tsukune answered, wracking his brain for his other evaluations. "I haven't used the whip yet, and the tanto is too short. I need something with more reach than a tanto."

Fujisaki nodded. "That makes sense," he said. "I'll see what I can do. And the handheld crossbow?"

Tsukune's face reddened. "I…uh… It's just that I had the throwing knives, so…"

"So the crossbow feels redundant, is what you're telling me," Fujisaki surmised. "That's a fair assessment. You don't seem to like fighting at range, either, so I guess exchanging the other ranged options for more things to use in a straight-up fight would be more useful."

Tsukune nodded mutely. His master only smirked, got up, and walked out of the room where Tsukune even now lay prone.

* * *

"Right, then. I requisitioned a few things for you based on the debriefing of your first mission. Tell me how you like them," Fujisaki said as he led Tsukune into a room that was covered from floor to ceiling with weapons-the armoury, Tsukune remembered it was called. "The first item is this," Fujisaki said, taking a pair of fingerless gloves off of a rack. "What do you see?"

"It's a pair of gloves…" Tsukune said, not quite understanding the question being asked of him.

"Go deeper," his master instructed. "What differentiates this from every other glove? What makes this piece of clothing into a weapon?"

Tsukune was about to say something else, but he noticed that something shimmered in the light. Focusing his sight upon it, he now knew what it was. "Those are… _wires?_ "

Fujisaki chuckled. "Close. Gossamer threads dipped in silver. Incredibly difficult to master, but one of the most effective in terms of fighting. I once fought against someone with that very weapon. It…wasn't pleasant."

"Ooh…" muttered Tsukune.

"Now, I personally don't think the weapon to be well-suited for you. I just wanted you to be aware of its existence, in the unlikely event that you have to deal with someone fighting with these. My advice to you if that happens? Don't play around. End it quickly, because every moment in which the wielder of the weapon is still alive is another moment you're going to have to make up for later. Ah! And addressing the issue of the length of the tanto…" He walked forth, and Tsukune followed two steps behind. There was a large case on a shelf near the back of the room, and it was to the case that his master directed him. He pressed a thumb to a lock on the box, and the acrid scent of Fujisaki's blood filled the room, but the top of the long, slim case opened to reveal a massive nihonto, long and slender and seemingly writhing in its case as the light dripped down onto its metallic surface, almost seeming to make rings like a rock skimmed on a lake of liquid metal. "This, Tsukune, is the end of all the problems you might have from a lack of reach. It's called an odachi."

Tsukune put his fingers tentatively around the same-and-silk tsuka, and began to lift it. In his hands, the length of metal was a tad unwieldy, but he had no problems holding it. In fact, it seemed to hum happily in his grasp. "Why is it humming, Shisho?" he asked.

"Oh? She likes you, does she?" Fujisaki said with a bemused expression. He hadn't told the kid that the sword was intelligent, nor had he told him that he was the first to wield the blade who didn't cause the intelligence within the sword to immediately begin shrieking at a psychic level. That the sword had, after all this time, chosen _his_ protege to wield her… "You are _truly_ exceptional, kid. Don't let anyone ever take that away from you." Fujisaki would almost have given up his two-hundred-year old plan for the eradication of humanity just to be a fly on the wall when that basic bitch Gyokuro found out that not only had the demonic sword Masamune chosen a wielder, but that that wielder was _his heir…_

The keyword, of course, being _almost._

"So, that's the question of your main weapon taken care of quite nicely…" he chuckled. "Her bloodlust is a lot to handle, kid. Make sure she's fed properly and regularly."

"What does she eat?" Tsukune asked.

"Blood," said Fujisaki. Seriously, did the kid just sometimes not listen? "Do not draw her lightly, because she will demand blood before being resheathed. Just slit your palm on her blade. That's it…" he coached the kid as he grasped the sharp end of the blade and sliced open his little eight-year-old palm on it. The sword glowed a sickly green colour before disappearing entirely. "And no, giving her your own blood like that doesn't work. It would just give her indigestion. But at any rate, you just sealed the pact in blood. You are now her wielder. Wield her well."

"What's her name?" asked Tsukune.

"Oh, she's had a lot of names over the years. Zantetsuken, Excalibur, Frostmourne, Stormbringer, Saika, Soulcalibur, Junketsu… But in the form she was in when I showed her to you, she's most commonly known as 'Masamune,'" said Fujisaki offhandedly. "She has other forms she can take based upon the situation at hand. Speaking of which, you should be feeling the branding right about… _now._ " Tsukune grabbed his arm in pain as it glowed the same sickly green, and then faded into black markings all up his forearm. "Now, summoning her takes energy, and as you learn to control your yoki, she will adapt to you, and take a form that is unique to you. Fair warning, however: she _is_ a bit of a diva. Bringing her out to kill lower Ayashi will not do much to endear you to her in the slightest. Using her should be your last resort, when all else seems lost. Which is why I'm going to say that you should probably keep the whip handy. Throwing knives don't seem to be very much your speed, so I'll counsel you to keep what you do with them relatively simple. You should have at the very least five of every yokai-harming metal. Silver, cold iron, adamantium, mithril…" He trailed off. "At the end of the day, you are going to be running into yokai and Ayashi that can only be fought at range, like, for example, a cockatrice, relatively regularly in the next two years. I would counsel you to keep at least one ranged option on hand. That is, well, until you're old enough and strong enough to learn some magic…"

That seed planted in the boy's head, Miyabi continued to show Tsukune tools of the yokai assassin's trade, which he looked upon with growing interest. Miyabi guessed that the kid had never dreamed of the existence of half the shit he chose to show him. Poisons and poultices, mixtures and mutagens-all of these Miyabi took the time to let him ogle and wonder at. Of course, half this stuff was so situational that Miyabi found himself wondering why it was there to begin with, but he supposed that in the assassin's trade, it paid to be prepared.

* * *

"Shisho, about my armour…" said Tsukune as he sat down to talk with his master. Two months since his first sortie, Tsukune had three missions with Akua under his belt, and so Miyabi sort of expected his heir to seek him out for guidance at this juncture. In light of that, he had planned for the event of this meeting coming to pass.

"Yeah, kid?" Miyabi replied, placing a slim cigar in his mouth and lighting it with the aid of a wooden match. "What about it?"

"I…uh…I feel like it's too heavy," Tsukune managed to spit out. "With all the equipment I bring on these missions, the armour feels like dead weight to me, and I'd like to ask if there's anything you would suggest I wear in lieu of it."

Miyabi smirked, and said, "I've got just the thing."

* * *

"What the actual fuck are you wearing, Tsukune?" Akua asked, more exasperated and confused than actually affronted by what her adopted little brother chose to garb him in.

Tsukune looked down at himself. He wore high leather boots, leather trousers and a long leather coat with silver pauldrons and a high collar. His chest was almost bare beneath the coat, his harness clearly showing where he stored his throwing knives. And of course, it was all entirely in black. Well, save the pauldrons, of course. They were still silver, though it was doubtful that any silver had been involved in their construction. He adjusted the high-dexterity black leather gloves he was wearing, and looked back to Akua. "What do you mean?"

Akua just shook her head. So long as Tsukune could continue to fight, it mattered not to her how he attired himself. Well, that is, unless Akua superimposed the silver colour of his vampiric hair upon his human hair, which had grown much longer and tamer since he had been turned to vampirism. If she did that, she would choose to laugh if only to keep herself from crying. And then there was the fact that the outfit was tailored to an eight-year-old's frame, which made the entire thing just so much more awkward and strange, and so she decided to stop thinking about it altogether. "We're nearing the drop zone. Do you have all your gear with you?"

Tsukune nodded, pulling his long coat to the side to showcase the whip he kept there.

With that assurance, Akua hopped out of the helicopter that was to take them to their next mission objective. "This should be open-and-shut," Akua said as she walked towards a for the most part unassuming building. "We give the Ayashi holed up in here the chance to join us. We exterminate with extreme prejudice if the answer is 'no.' I'll take point. You take the other entrance. We shouldn't have to use your trump card this time, but step lively all the same."

"Hai," Tsukune replied.

Akua kicked the door down and sauntered in. The building moonlit as a bar for humans, but was in reality a sort of 'halfway house' for outcast Ayashi. To that end, she gave the room she entered into a clean sweep with her eyes and yoki detection. "So, this is the best you can do," Akua said mockingly as she stepped over the threshold. "A rundown little tavern in the midst of humans."

Soon, all the Ayashi in the building came in and stopped before her. "What do you want, _vampire?_ " asked the one she surmised was the lead Ayashi, the owner of the building.

"Well, today's your lucky day," Akua said with a heavy current of boredom. She was an _assassin,_ not a bloody _diplomat!_ "Ever heard of 'Fairy Tale'?"

"Thanks, but no thanks. We're fine here. We're not going to go against the Three Great Dark Lords just because it means better accommodations," he said.

"You have truly no idea how much I was hoping you'd say that…" Akua muttered.

"What?" The next moment, the head Ayashi found his torso suddenly very much separate from his lower body. Then blood began to spray everywhere, and he fell to the ground, dead.

"Ototo! Now would be a good time!" Akua called. The back door exploded inwards, and suddenly kunai flew by her, striking more than one of the Ayashi in the head or heart. A few were silver, a few were cold iron, and was that… _mithril_ she saw? It mattered not, for shortly thereafter, there was Tsukune, leaping into the fray.

Akua took the time to sit back and just watch the results of her training. His kills were not as… _abrupt_ as hers were, but that was to be expected out of someone who had never mastered the Jigen-tou. What _did_ surprise her was the developing sense of brutality that Tsukune delivered when he fought hand-to-hand. It was a strangely incongruous image-a small child no older than eight acting like the human conception of what a 'killing machine' was. Of course, compared to Akua when she wasn't holding back, his movements were sluggish and inexperienced and wasted a lot of energy, but there was almost a strange rhythm to his motions, as if he was dancing to music that only he himself could hear. It was almost mesmerising.

Roughly three minutes had passed since Tsukune's intervention when he ended the last Ayashi by stomping on its face. Akua had no choice but to be impressed by the kind of headway her ototo was making in terms of fighting skill, if not his fashion sense. "Commendable, if a bit sloppy," said Akua at last. Tsukune favoured her with a genuine smile at the praise she was giving him. "Come on. Our mission isn't over until this place is razed to the ground."

"Oh, I brought something for that," Tsukune replied.

"...What?" Akua asked, suddenly quite terrified.

"Yeah. I brought a jar of alchemyst's fyre along with me," the eight-year-old assassin explained. "In case we needed to torch the place."

Akua took a second to silently curse her grandfather, who thought it appropriate to tell an eight-year-old child, vampire or not, what alchemyst's fyre was, and then grant him access to the incredibly dangerous substance. She then took a moment to consider that she might as well make the best of the current situation, which led to her arm being outstretched to receive the jar.

Tsukune obediently gave her the jar, and she threw it into the wall near enough to the alcohol to make it, too, catch fire. Akua then led Tsukune out of the establishment, and they proceeded to the extraction point together. When the helicopter lifted off to return them to the flying fortress that was Fairy Tale's headquarters, Akua spied Tsukune picking at the high collar of the long coat he wore. "I think I like this outfit," Tsukune said. "It's lighter and easier to move in than my body armour…"

"Just don't get caught going to a cosplay event, ototo," Akua finally said. Those were her final words on the subject of how her little brother was dressed.

* * *

"So, out of curiosity, is there a _reason_ you gave an eight-year-old boy access to alchemyst's fyre?" Akua asked her grandfather, her arms folded in a confrontational stance.

"I thought it was about time for him to learn the tools of the trade," replied the Shinso, looking up from what he was doing, but still puffing on that cigar. "If you have a problem with how I train my heir, please, voice it."

"Fine. Then how about this. Alchemyst's fyre is incredibly dangerous and notoriously hard to control once it catches. It's also one of the only things that can harm a vampire, which, in case you had forgotten, is the species of your heir," Akua spat. "It's reckless endangerment."

"Akua, do you know how often I join the other subdivision heads for poker night?" he asked calmly. "Do you know how often I go to casinos? Do you know how often I make bets when I haven't already fixed the outcome? The answer to all these questions is the same: I _don't._ I never leave things to chance. So, then, would it not follow that I actually do, as hard as it may be for you to believe, _know what I'm doing?_ " He shook his head. "Don't worry, Akua. I won't make you lose another sibling. As strange as it might sound, I'm actually quite fond of the kid. That, and there's nothing I despise seeing more than wasted potential."

"And I'll have to trust you on that, won't I?" Akua sighed.

"No. I'll never put you in a situation where you have to do _that._ I'm simply asking you to have some degree of faith in my abilities," the other vampire responded. "After all, you of all people, the only one who knows who I truly am, should know _just_ what I'm capable of…"

"Indeed," she conceded. "So, why did you give him kunai made out of precious metals? Those can't be cheap…"

"They aren't, but the look on that arrogant bitch's face when she sees the bill for our operations makes it all worth it in the end," Fujisaki said with his characteristic smirk. "And as long as the Masked King has anything to say about it, she'll continue to foot the bill, so to speak, until the promised day has come, and that day is many years from now. And yes, I'm aware that it's a bit reckless to keep making trouble for our 'glorious leader' like that, but then, by the same token, when it comes right down to it, who is more expendable? The puppet or the puppeteer?"

"As long as Tsukune doesn't get caught in the crossfire, I don't care about the politicking of my superiors," Akua said at last. "After all, I'm just an assassin."

"You know, a year and a half ago, you would have said 'Moka'. Has the kid truly usurped Moka's place in your heart?" Fujisaki remarked.

"Never," Akua hissed. Fujisaki merely looked at her with his impassive eyes until she managed to regain her composure. "It's simply that I've come to terms with the fact that Moka is _going_ to end up in the crossfire, no matter what I do. I'd like to at least save _one_ of my siblings from becoming a pawn in the great game of the world that bitch Gyokuro thinks she's playing."

"Fair," Fujisaki nodded, blowing out a ring of smoke. "Then, just this once, I'll give you a word of warning, from ancestor to descendant: Gyokuro's eyes have been on Tsukune since he was first chosen to wield the demonic sword Masamune. And even with all your power, you are not going to be able to protect him from the consequences of that twenty-four hours a day. If you want him to be able to survive on his own, then perhaps we ought to move up the timetables a little bit."

If the person he was talking about had been _anyone_ else, the realisation that Akua came to in that moment would have had her on the ground and dying of laughter. As it stood, it came as a slap to the face and a punch to the abdomen simultaneously. "You didn't plan for him to be chosen as Masamune's wielder, did you?" she said in a terrified whisper.

"No, I didn't," Fujisaki confirmed. "But on the bright side, Masamune's influence should be able to speed up the adjustment process to the Shinso blood that flows through his veins, and so it should be perfectly fine to move forward to his _special_ training."

"Wasn't part of the reason why the 'special training' had to wait that he was too green to be able to survive it?" Akua asked, still taken aback.

"She won't let it kill him," Fujisaki sighed. "And besides, his combat abilities have come to a plateau, and will not increase until he learns to control the energy within him. If he is to survive until the promised day, then it falls to me to teach him to _use_ Masamune."

"And for that, he has to be able to control his yoki, doesn't he?" Akua asked.

"You know, it's poor form to ask a question to which you already know the answer," the other vampire pointed out. "But yes, the kid needs to learn to use both his yoki and as much magic as I can teach him between now and the day when he is ready to take on his mission. Rest assured, I won't throw him into that pit to do battle with Mikogami unprepared." The Shinso's expression didn't change, but suddenly the room felt that much colder. "Believe me: when the time comes for him to infiltrate Yokai Academy, he will know all he needs to about how true vampires do battle."

"For both our sakes, I hope you're right." And with that, Akua left.


	3. Introductory Arc Part 3

"Tsukune. It appears as though there's been a change in plans," Miyabi said as he stood from his seat at the far end of the room they were in. "Now, I feel it is only fair to say that my methods are quite a bit different from Akua's, but rest assured, I know precisely what I'm doing." Tsukune only blinked. "This will be the first day of your… _special_ training. Akua taught you how to take on six Ayashi. I will teach you to annihilate six hundred. Akua taught you to detect yoki. I will teach you to manipulate and control it. Akua taught you what battle was. I will teach you how a vampire does battle. Akua taught you that you had potential. I will teach you to reach it. However, it will be a long process, and often painful. I will test every fibre of your being. I will tear you down and destroy you utterly, and then I will teach you to build yourself back up. Make no mistake-the path I show you will not be easily traversed. But it is the path to true power that I offer you. Are you willing to take the first step?"

Tsukune nodded, this time more carefully.

"Excellent. Now, I must admit that I have been remiss-traditionally it is the creator, and only the creator, who trains the fledgeling in the arts of combat and survival. However, given your age and consequent lack of durability, training you personally from the very start would have been a very, _very_ bad idea." Miyabi started moving around the room, twirling the cane in his hand every so often as he paced about the chamber. "Akua trained you to survive. Now, it is my turn, and I must warn you, I'm nowhere near as… _gentle_ as Akua can sometimes be."

Tsukune gulped, but his eyes remained steely and resolute.

"Good. Then let's begin." Tsukune did not see Fujisaki move, but could feel a massive killing intent right next to him. Next thing he knew, he was on the ground, staring up at the ceiling of the chamber. He heard Fujisaki sigh. "Jeez… Note to self, be very specific and very literal next time I have Akua do something for me… Your sister never mentioned anything about your third eye, did she?"

Tsukune got to his feet again. "Third eye?" he asked. "But, Shisho, I only have two eyes."

"No. You're a vampire. You have three eyes," Fujisaki sighed.

"Do _you_ have three eyes, Shisho?" Tsukune asked.

"Okay, let's make it simple and just say that _you_ have three eyes, kid. The two you know about, and the one in the middle of your forehead." Tsukune gave his master a confused look at this, who only sighed and said, "It's a metaphor. I picked it because I thought that would make it easier to visualise. I suppose I was mistaken on that note. Look, kid. The third eye is a fancy way of saying 'yoki detection.' You know what? I have an idea." His master came closer and fastened a blindfold around his eyes. "The human eyes you've been using are inferior-vestigial. They are easily tricked, manipulated, and deceived. And let me say for the record that this was meant to be an evaluation and not a remedial lesson, but I suppose that I should have expected something like this to be the case. Kid, if you keep trusting your vestigial eyes, you'll never survive against the more powerful yokai out there. So to eliminate that issue, for the next week, you will wear this blindfold. You are to rely solely on your third eye. The purpose of this is that you will hopefully learn to trust your third eye over your vestigial ones, and that your third eye can better develop over a week of continuous use than it could over years of only occasional use. Do you understand?"

He nodded. "Hai, Shisho."

* * *

Over the next week, Tsukune had to rely solely upon his ability to detect yoki to find and identify people. Using that part of him felt like his head was pounding, if only to conceptually understand how he could sense with perfect clarity every intersection, corner and turn of the floating fortress. Not that his ability to detect people was particularly useful in that regard-one look at the blindfold and most people kept their distance from him. It was fine, though; it wasn't as if Tsukune had friends. The only company that he needed to keep to feel happy was that of his master and of Akua-nee. Certainly, sometimes he looked back on the days when he was human and so had human friends, and he remembered them fondly, but his recollection of those days became hazier and more dreamlike with each passing moment he spent as a vampire. To him, it almost felt as if Aono Tsukune had not begun until he met with his master in the woods. What memories he had of what it had been like before that point were beginning to fade now that two years had passed-he could not even remember the faces or voices of his parents. In their place were recollections of his master's cool, calm voice and Akua-nee's grudgingly kind tones. He was nevertheless content.

On the final day, however, he was moving from the mess hall back to his quarters when a large source of yoki popped into the range of his 'third eye'-that terminology was still quite alien to him conceptually. As it drew closer, however, he was able to sense that there were, in fact, not one, but two sources of energy, one much larger than the other. The larger of the two had an architecture to its inner workings that was somewhat eldritch for him, and so he focused his attention on the rising belligerence of the smaller of the two sources. It was young-perhaps even younger than he himself was-and female; he could tell that immediately. "So, who are you supposed to be?" asked the smaller signature-definitely female, and definitely younger than him.

"Aono Tsukune," he introduced himself.

"Oh, so you're the assassin-in-training that Akua-nee's been working with," said the girl. "Name's Shuzen Kokoa, but you can call me Kokoa-sama."

"That…thing on your shoulder. What is it, exactly?" asked Tsukune, pointing at the larger source of yoki. "Its geometry is… _unfamiliar_ to me."

"It's my Transformer Bat…" she said in confusion. "Why?"

"I was curious as to why such a large source of yoki was travelling on the shoulder of one a fair bit smaller," Tsukune explained.

It should be noted that Tsukune did not wish to taunt Kokoa, and delivered his explanation with all the tact that he could muster. It should also be noted that Tsukune was nine, and for all the progress he had made in combat and as a vampire, his age and relative inexperience with others gave him a unique lack of tact that could either be a gift or a curse. In this case, for example, it was most certainly a curse.

" _What_ did you say?!" she cried, her belligerence transforming into pure killing intent. The geometry of the Transformer Bat unravelled and became something else entirely-a weapon capable of incapacitating him if not slaying him outright. Sensing this, he rolled out of the way and took a combat stance. The killing intent made Kokoa's yoki swell to a level that Tsukune knew was going to be difficult to defeat.

Difficult, however, didn't mean impossible, and with her yoki giving away where she was and what her intentions were at all times, Tsukune came to the realisation of what his master was attempting to impart. His human eyes were restricted to what could be seen in front of him; his third eye, however, could detect what was all around him in every direction. Thus, it became a much simpler task to avoid the ludicrously overly-massive, single-edged, quasi-western zanbato she was swinging around like it actually had a chance of hitting someone who wasn't charging her on horseback.

The problem that began to rear its head was that her slashes became wider and less precise, and then much more quick. Tsukune, even with his speed augmented by his vampirism, could not continue to outrun it. But before the killing blow could be landed-a jumping downward swing-he put up his hands to attempt to catch it, and as the seal on his arm that marked him as the wielder of the odachi he had seen before began to burn, a sickly green light started to form between his arms. He closed his hand around the tsuka reflexively, and the over-large sword clashed against the long, slender, beautiful blade of Masamune.

It was at that moment that a familiar voice said, "Very good, kid. Very good indeed. But that's quite enough of that."

"Shisho?!" he grunted out, reaching out to feel the yoki of the person who had just spoken, which resulted in having his suspicions confirmed-it _was_ his master.

"Stand down, Kokoa," his master ordered.

"Sure. Right after I kill this filthy second-born apprentice of yours…"

Miyabi placed his cane upon Kokoa's shoulder, and his eyes brooked no argument. "Stand. Down."

Kokoa broke away, and the massive sword became that bundle of impossible geometries once again. "This isn't over, Aono!" she called after him.

Tsukune could not respond. He doubled over in pain as voices assailed him from every direction. Voices that called for blood and for death. He could feel the yawning hunger for life, for souls themselves… The pressure they exerted upon his mind was quickly reaching the point where it was unbearable.

And then, all at once, they stopped-the voices, that is. Suddenly the burning in his forearm subsided, and Masamune vanished. His sight came back to him, and he heard his master assuring him. "It's okay, kid. It's fine. She's gone. Stay with me here, kid."

"Shi…sho?" asked Tsukune, noticing the cut upon his master's hand before he had the chance to hide it.

"It's fine, kid. Just another little Shuzen bitch who thinks that because the great Akasha Bloodriver married into their house, they're the destined rulers of all yokai. They're a dime a dozen, I'm afraid." His master said that with unusual vitriol-which, since he had rarely ever spoken vitriolically before, wasn't saying much on its own-and a hint of bitterness. "Their kind are like vermin. Do not give your regard to them lest they get the better of you. You're a Shinso, kid. The ultimate vampire. Don't concern yourself with the posing, preening filth that gives our entire race a bad name."

Tsukune nodded.

"You did well, though, kid. You finally learned to trust your third eye. Not only that, but you gave me the perfect segue into our next lesson."

"What is that, Shisho?" asked Tsukune apprehensively.

Miyabi gave him a smirk and ruffled his lengthening hair. "Worry about it tomorrow, kid. For now, go get some rest. You've earned it."

* * *

As soon as Tsukune was out of sight and earshot, Miyabi punched through the wall nearest to him, gritting his teeth in rage. He was, in a word, _furious._ His plans-the plans he had spent two hundred years slaving over and perfecting in every aspect-were nearly botched because of a meddling Shuzen with a god complex. He had to stop himself from hunting Kokoa down and putting her in her place. He had to stop himself because if he acted rashly or took any risks at this stage in the game, all his plotting and scheming over the past two centuries would have been for naught. His hands were, unfortunately, effectively tied.

He wouldn't let it end like this, though. He wouldn't let some uppity lower-class vampire ruin all that he had worked for for the past several centuries. If he had to take his heir with him everywhere he went, he would. Because the sad truth of the matter was that Tsukune's arrival in his life had forced him to re-evaluate a lot of his plans and goals and priorities, and now his heir figured in most of his plans for the future, such as they were. He was the key-the most important piece on the board-and so it fell to the older of the two to make sure that he survived.

The Shinso Alucard could only hope that he was up to the task.

* * *

"Okay, kid, today we're going to try something a little different," said Miyabi as he paced around Tsukune, lighting his cigar as he circled the boy. "Now, there are other ways-quicker ways-to accomplish what we are going to begin to work toward today. Toho Fuhai, for example-one of the Three Great Dark Lords-has an entire ritual built around this. But the fact of the matter is that I am a firm believer in the idea that there are no short cuts on the road to perfection. And so we will do this the hard way, Tsukune, as it was done in ages past. I am going to teach you to control your yoki.

"Now, you did well to call upon the power of Masamune yourself. But Masamune is not your sword. You have only borrowed it." At the sight of Tsukune's confusion, Miyabi elaborated. "I have told you that she-the sword, that is-has had many names over the years. I did not clarify what that means. So I shall do so now. Make sure you're listening, kid, because I won't repeat myself. You either get it, or you don't. In the former case, the sword's power becomes yours to wield. If you don't, then the sword will forever be your mistress, and you will never be free of her. Do you understand?"

Tsukune nodded.

"Good. Now then, remember this: Each name she has borne corresponds to a form she has taken, which in turn corresponds to a wielder she has chosen over the innumerable years that she has existed. She has chosen you, now, and so it falls to you to give her form, and to that form, ascribe a name."

"I think I understand," Tsukune replied. "But how will I give her form-?"

"By gaining control of your yoki," answered Miyabi, blowing out a thick plume of tobacco smoke. "The better your control is, the closer she will come to the form that corresponds to you, as her latest wielder." The boy nodded. "Now, improving one's control over their yoki is never an easy task. Improving their skill? Elementary. Improving your kinesthesia? Child's play. Improving your control over your yoki is an insurmountable task by comparison to any but the most talented yokai. However, by the time I'm done training you, your control over your yoki will be perfect and impeccable-if you manage to survive the experience." The boy swallowed, but nodded again, that iron will glinting in his eyes. "Now, knowing how to reach that level requires knowledge of what you're doing. In human terms, learning to control your body and then your yoki is akin to burning carbohydrates followed by burning the actual fat in your body. You'll notice a theme here: one is significantly harder than the other. Fear not, though, Tsukune. Now's not the time for that. _That_ comes later." With that, he stepped up to Tsukune, took the boy's arm that bore the Holy Lock in his hand, and just held it there. "For now, I just want you to remember these words: I am I. Are you prepared?"

That look of ironclad determination had not left his eyes. Miyabi chuckled at this. 'Resolute to the end, eh, kid?' he wanted to ask, but did not. Instead, he took the Holy Lock in his hand and whispered a few words. Tsukune was hit with a sudden flood of energy that was belligerent, murderous, _bloodthirsty._ "Remember the words, kid. Just remember who you are, and you'll be fine," Miyabi said blithely. "The first step to control is identity. You must be an unmoved mover. The yoki is your life energy. You must find a harmony with it-a balance of sorts-or it _will_ destroy you and everything you are."

"Shi-Shisho…" Tsukune muttered through the pain of all that vampiric energy flooding through him.

"Now, Toho Fuhai would have merely redirected the yoki through your body using acupuncture. However, artificial modifications like that can only do so much," Miyabi explained. "I, on the other hand, am teaching you to manipulate yoki through the existing network of chakra throughout your body. By the end of this lesson, you will have control of yourself that is an order of magnitude greater than anything that damned yasha could give you. What I have done is unlocked the first seal of the Holy Lock. Unlike anything that Mikogami could give you, the Holy Lock you have worn for the past two years was designed to help you with the task of mastering yourself through limiting how much energy is going through you at any given time."

"Shi…sho…" Tsukune gasped out again.

"Something that I often find helpful for something like this is a set of affirmations. Remember what I told you, kid. Remember the words."

"I…am I… I…am I…" Tsukune began gasping out between breaths.

"Very good," Miyabi said as he sensed the yoki exuding from Tsukune wrap around him and pull tighter against him. "All you need to do is to find your centre. In this case, your centre is your identity. Hold on to that with all your might, and control will come."

The process continued for several hours, but this did not matter to Miyabi. What mattered was that Tsukune's control was growing at an exponential rate. What most people didn't understand about yoki was that it, like a cosmic body, was drawn to the largest concentration of power near it, and so as Tsukune began to assert more and more control, the faster and faster the yoki fell under his command, until, five hours later, Tsukune stood on unsteady legs. His long hair had turned completely silver, his skin was pale as alabaster, and his catlike eyes were blood red. "Welcome back to the world of the living, kid," Miyabi said, standing before his heir. "That much yoki will be difficult to deal with, and so I will work you to its expenditure each day from now on. Every two months, I will unlock another seal on that Holy Lock until you can use your full power without fear of being consumed by it, at which point I will give you a Holy Lock worthy of a full Shinso. Be prepared, kid, because you are about to enter Hell."

* * *

And Miyabi was true to his word. Each day, he entered his master's presence, and began to warm up-by fighting him. Every time they fought, however, Miyabi was focused more on whatever he was reading or doing to react, fighting with only one hand and one half his full attention. When his master ended the match, he went over every mistake Tsukune had made-every mistimed counter, every overextended punch-and he did so through corporal punishment, making Tsukune feel a fraction of what an experienced combatant could do with the openings he left to be exploited. After that, he would begin the lesson of the day. The lesson, however, was not about fighting. It was usually things like what he would learn in school, only not at all like that, because the topics they covered would never come up in school. The strengths and weaknesses of each type of pureblood yokai and a few of the more numerous types of Ayashi as well as their languages-Tsukune was good with languages-and cultures. It was less training him that Miyabi was doing, and more teaching him. By the end of the first month they were fluently conversing in the languages of over a dozen different purebred yokai.

The next month, the lessons focused on yoki control. Miyabi taught Tsukune how to tease out and manipulate his yoki, and so many days they held their sessions on the ceiling as opposed to on the floor. This exercise began to evolve into different ways to use yoki until it reached the topic about which Tsukune was most curious-namely, magic.

They began with the very basics of the Mystic Arts-primal magic, or, as it was more commonly known, sorcery. As Miyabi explained it, sorcery stemmed from dragons, as it was how they experienced the Mystic Arts. Sorcery revolved around controlling and manipulating the four primal elements-water, earth, fire and air. But Miyabi wasn't satisfied with his heir only learning the basic primal elements; he did not stop pushing Tsukune until the fire he brought to life with the force of his will burned bright blue, until he could tease metal from a stone, could turn water into ice, and create lightning out of air. Soon, their fights began to involve magic, but still, to every move Tsukune tried, Miyabi had a counter. Not to mention, corporal punishment was a lot more painful when it involved electrocution.

On the bright side, however, whenever Kokoa came after him with lethal intent, magic seemed to solve the situation rather quickly. It helped when he could anticipate her every move and could counter it with a disproportionate response.

The next form of magic they learned was demonic-the Dark Arts. This would be the magic that Shinso like him excelled at, and true to predictions, he took to it rather quickly. He learned how to walk into a shadow at one end of a room and then walk out of a shadow on the other side of the room, or in another room entirely. This added an entirely new dimension to their fights, even as Tsukune adjusted to the speed, strength and agility that having the first seal of his Holy Lock undone granted him. Of course, the room they practised in was dim and hardly lit, so learning that shadow-walking technique did wonders for his mobility.

One day, something happened that Miyabi didn't expect-the first ball of sickly green flame went right by his head, and he had to cock it to avoid getting hit with a faceful of soul-devouring fire. "Well, kid, I'm impressed. Wytchfyre isn't easy to conjure."

"Really?" Tsukune asked. "I just used dark magic to fuel the blue fire instead of primal, and it turned green and stuff."

Miyabi sighed; it was sometimes quite easy to forget that his heir was all of nine years old. "Kid, what you just used is called wytchfyre, and it's one of the few spells that can actually kill a vampire outright. Don't feel bad-I was in no danger from it-but know this: first, I'm impressed with your progress. Second, I would encourage you to use that sparingly. Wytchfyre is the type of spell that ends a duel to the death, not a spell to be used in a training match."

"Hai, Shisho," Tsukune replied.

One thing Tsukune could not understand, however, was the sword that had bound herself to him; he had only been able to draw her once, and that was in the fight against Kokoa. Whenever he tried to draw the sword after that, however-secretly so that his master wouldn't find out-he had failed miserably.

It was like this that Miyabi found Tsukune one day, in the fourth month of their training. He had just had another part of the Holy Lock removed, but try as he might, he could not get the black markings on his arm to glow that sickly green colour again, nor could he summon the sword whom he knew slept within him.

"What's got you up in arms, kid?" Miyabi asked finally, causing Tsukune to frown. Miyabi took this as a good thing-the kid really got the point of constant vigilance, and with his third eye open, there were very few things that could sneak up on him. One of those was, of course, himself, but that required he do a few things that might cause his heir to ask some very awkward questions the answers to which he was not yet ready to hear.

Tsukune slumped. He had been discovered. "Shisho…" he began. "I can't summon Masamune again…like I did against Kokoa."

Miyabi _laughed._

Tsukune whirled about in alarm. His master chuckled or smirked-he didn't _laugh!_

"Of _course_ you can't summon her! She'll protect you if your life's in danger, but you haven't reached your upper limit of yoki control. Masamune isn't your sword. Until you give her the unique form that is exemplary of her bond to you, you'll never be able to summon her at will. She's the _ultimate demonic sword!_ Of course she wouldn't just materialise on command for someone who hasn't proven worthy of drawing her at will."

"So, you're saying that if I perfect my yoki control, I'll be able to wield her whenever I want?" the nine-year-old asked with childlike excitement.

"You know what? Sure, kid. Knock yourself out." A thought occurred to Miyabi that perhaps he just wasn't good with kids.

* * *

Shuzen Gyokuro couldn't understand it. A secondborn vampire was now amongst their ranks, and yet Fujisaki Miyabi, who, although they often disagreed on certain points, cared as much about the future of the vampire race as she did, had claimed him as his heir-was training the brat to succeed him. Not only that, but the brat had claimed for himself the single most powerful, albeit alien, weapon that Fairy Tale had at its disposal, and then gone on to hold his own against Kokoa, who, although she was a failure of a daughter, was still _her_ daughter, and a natural-born vampire to boot.

Admittedly, Gyokuro had had a metaphorical bone to pick with the brat from the very beginning, on the grounds that he had become one of their number without her foreknowledge or her approval. She had sent Akua and the new one on that mission specifically because she counted on the S-class yokai to destroy the brat, and Akua to return to home base, unharmed. But apparently, Fujisaki knew something she didn't, because the brat had not only _survived,_ but very nearly _killed_ that werewolf. She hated that Fujisaki seemed to know something she didn't-seemed to know a great deal that she didn't-on the grounds that she had found herself on increasingly thin ice with the Masked King, the one who _really_ ran the show, and didn't want to lose the opportunity to do something that would surpass the storied accomplishments of Akasha Bloodriver, her eternal rival.

So yes, perhaps trying to off one of their newest and quickly becoming greatest assets was a foolish, unprofessional idea. But with every hour the brat spent alive, she felt as though her power base in Fairy Tale was disintegrating, bit by bit and piece by piece. At this rate, she might as well try to marry Kokoa off to the brat, if only so that she could keep her head above water. But that was a last resort; she did not want to stain the illustrious Shuzen bloodline with the ichor of a secondborn mongrel.

There was one thing, however, that was immediately evident to her: whatever Fujisaki was planning-and he _was_ planning something-it involved Aono Tsukune. He was the key to all of it, which made him a very dangerous, albeit large, target. He was an element she would have to deal with at some point. She merely needed an opening…

...Well, that and a plan. Yeah, a plan would be nice.

* * *

Akua didn't make a habit of taking walks the way Alucard did. She found the exercise to be somewhat boring and repetitive, and she did not take solace in being alone amidst one's surroundings as he did. But Akua thought this to be a special case. Tsukune had gone to his 'special training,' which she quickly gathered was just a program meant to groom him as her grandfather's successor, and so Akua had been struck with the strange inclination to find out what kind of hole her precious ototo's absence had left on the people who had professed to care about him.

Of course, she was aware that no-one cared for him save herself-and, perhaps, her grandfather-because no-one _could_ care for him the way she and her grandfather did. But still, it was a disappointing experience to walk through the neighbourhood he had lived in as a human, only to find that the 'Have You Seen This Child' posters that had used to be there were now fading pitifully into the background of the entire neighbourhood. It was like the fervour had died down, and everyone had gone back to their daily lives. His so-called 'family' hadn't even left, either. They just…it wasn't accurate to say 'moved on' so much as 'pretended it didn't happen.' It saddened her to think that the young boy that she had become so attached to over the past two years was so insignificant to these people that the only thing that remained to prove he had ever existed as a human being were the half-hearted signs posted on the telephone poles.

Moka was now well and truly out of her grasp, but with Tsukune, she had a chance-a chance to make right that which she had made wrong with Akasha Bloodriver's daughter…a chance to do what she couldn't do for Jasmine. She would see to it that this second chance was not squandered. Tsukune may be Alucard's heir, but he was _her_ ototo first and foremost, and she would protect him, come what may.

That night, there was a chain of fires all over the neighbourhood in which Tsukune had once called home. Despite the best efforts of the firefighters, a full half of the houses fell to the swath of destruction that these fires caused, and dozens of people died in the conflagration. In the midst of it all, like the eye of a hurricane, there stood one house-the house belonging to the Aono family. In fact, it was almost supernatural in how very much undamaged by the fires it was while surrounded by destruction. The only clue that the police had as to who committed the massive arson were sightings of a pale Chinese girl who dressed in a black Inverness coat who had walked by the houses, and then vanished entirely.

Akua didn't usually take walks, but this would be a night to remember.


	4. Introductory Arc Finale

"Alright, kid, we've just passed into yuki-onna territory. What can you tell me about them?" Miyabi said to the eleven-year old seated near the back of the chopper.

"Yuki-onna are creatures of ice and snow. Their powers revolve around that, and so any kind of heat can be used to incapacitate or kill them. Their solution to the relative heat elsewhere in the world is to have some sort of dissolving candy to keep their body temperatures out of dangerous heights," Tsukune recited. "They are also very rare, due to the fact that their fertility will only last so long, and so a culture has been formed where they abduct humans with which to breed quite industriously."

"Very good," his master commended him. "Now, this is your first mission with me, so I would prefer you keep your eyes open and let me do the talking."

"Hai, Shisho," Tsukune responded. He ran a black-gloved hand through his waist-length silver hair, but was otherwise calm.

"Now, what we go to now is a diplomatic meeting, which means that even if your role is to play the mercenary enforcer, I still expect you to pay attention to the goings-on of these talks. Do you understand?"

"Hai," the kid replied.

Miyabi appeared as though he had more to say, but then the pilot of the chopper called out, "We're closing in now! Fasten your seatbelts!"

Miyabi sat next to his heir, and buckled up his seatbelt. They were homing in on the prepared landing area, descending out of the skies. Miyabi could already see the welcome party, but he could also sense the tension coming off of his heir in waves. "Calm down, kid. They might be kidnappers, but take it from me: there are worse fates."

Tsukune nodded, as the helicopter made its final descent for a landing.

* * *

Shirayuki Mizore wasn't supposed to be at the meeting site for the diplomatic discussion that was to occur that day between the Snow Priestess and representatives from the organisation known only as 'Fairy Tale.' She knew she wasn't supposed to be there-her mother had told her as much-but curiosity got the better of her. So as the helicopter that carried the Fairy Tale reps descended, she found a pillar to hide behind so that she could view the people that came off the aircraft, and perhaps satisfy her curiosity.

The first person off the helicopter she didn't like, mostly because she could feel the danger radiating off of him in thick, suffocating waves. His expression gave nothing away, and though he was uncommonly attractive, Mizore found herself wanting to do little more than run as far and as fast as she could, just to escape that monster. In fact, she had been about to do that, but the Fates had a different plan in mind for her-one that began with the next person off of the chopper.

The second person off the helicopter looked young-looked to be about her age, in fact. Despite this, his aura was very strange-very much as evil as the first person's, but not in the same fashion. While the first man's aura of danger screamed 'run', the boy's aura of danger was much less profuse than the man's. His hair was long and silver and cascaded down to his waist. He dressed almost entirely in black leather, with the exception of the upper chest, which was bare beneath the harness he wore. His blood-red eyes, in combination with his hair, revealed him to be a vampire of some sort, and his presence intrigued her. She kept staring, observing every expression that crossed his admittedly quite appealing face. She wondered what the relationship was between the man whose aura screamed 'run' and the boy whose aura whispered 'succumb.'

All too soon, however, the man and the Snow Priestess went into the conference room to begin their talks. She was resigned to this intriguing new arrival's participation in such. But he wasn't moving. She looked up at his face and saw his catlike eyes focused on her, studying her with as much intensity as she was studying him. Mizore, for some reason, felt herself flush, and turned to run away. But when she did turn, she came face to face with him. It took her a moment to hear past her galloping heart and be able to listen to what he was saying. "Don't the yuki-onna consider it rude to run away from someone you're studying without at least introducing yourself? Here, I'll go first. My name is Aono Tsukune. What is yours?"

"Sh-Shirayuki. Shirayuki Mizore," she stuttered shyly, squirming at the unusually direct gaze of the boy in front of her.

"Shirayuki? Like the flower?" the vampire asked with an unusually serious expression.

Mizore giggled at his overly-formal bearing. The boy in front of her was stiff and seemed overly-polite. It was like he had never learned to talk to people his age-or that if he had, those days were so far in the past that they might as well have never occurred at all. "Yes, like the flower," she said. Demonic aura or no, this boy was cute-awkward, perhaps, but awkward in a good way. "Hey, while the adults are talking, do you want me to show you around the village?"

He simply looked at her, puzzled. "I thought that relations between Fairy Tale and your people were tenuous at best. Why would you show me, an agent of that same organisation, the layout of your entire village?"

"Well…" muttered Mizore. Truth be told, she hadn't thought about it that way. Even so… "I wouldn't show the other man the village. You don't seem so dangerous in comparison."

Tsukune laughed, and she could tell that it was the first time in many years that he'd had cause to do that. "I suppose you're right. Next to Shisho, I can't look like I'm _that_ intimidating." He continued to laugh, finally running his black-gloved fingers through his long silver hair. "And to tell you the truth, I'm not really a part of Fairy Tale…"

"Oh?" prompted Mizore as she walked back to the village, and Tsukune fell into step next to her.

"Yeah. Truth is, I'm to be Shisho's heir, so I'm technically not an official member of the organisation. As far as the paperwork is concerned, I'm just a 'secondborn mercenary.' Though I don't exactly get paid, so I guess the terminology's a little nebulous on that score." Mizore realised that Tsukune was actually _nervous_ to talk to her, which only made him cuter in her mind. Something caught her attention, though.

"You're a secondborn vampire?" she asked curiously.

"Yeah. Shisho saved my life by turning me when I was seven," Tsukune admitted. "Then I trained for a year with Akua-nee, went on a few missions, and then I began my special training with Shisho."

"That man _sired_ you?" Mizore asked, incredulous. The difference between the two vampires was, to her, like night and day. "He seems really scary…"

Tsukune chuckled nervously. "Shisho isn't _that_ bad. He's a harsh teacher and quite firm, but he's very fair. I learned a lot from him these past few years."

For Tsukune, this was the first girl he had interacted with who wasn't another vampire, and he wasn't entirely certain how to communicate with her, especially since most of the things that he and Akua-nee discussed revolved around combat and different ways to kill people. Kokoa wasn't one for discussion that didn't involve the premature end of Tsukune's eternal life, and there weren't many other females in Fairy Tale that were willing to interact with him and thus potentially piss off Gyokuro. So talking to girls about things other than killing people was a skill he had yet to master-especially girls as pretty as Mizore. Thus, when she showed him around the small village where she lived with her mother, he nodded and responded politely-formality being his only shield against the consequences of his lacklustre communication skills.

"Aono-san…" Mizore began.

"Tsukune, please," the vampire corrected.

"Very well. Tsukune-kun, do I make you uncomfortable?" Mizore asked, point-blank.

"Sorry, it's just that the only girl I talk to on a regular basis is Onee-sama," Tsukune said. He then muttered under his breath, "That, and you're really pretty, so…"

Mizore grinned and blushed when he said that. He didn't _know_ that she'd heard, really- she'd be surprised if she found out that he actually knew he had given that last thought voice. It amused her, hanging out with the young vampire-it actually helped the pain of the human boy who had rejected her fade somewhat. In the ordinary course, she wouldn't have dreamt of doing what she now found herself doing, but the fact that for all his knowledge of yuki-onna customs, Tsukune still seemed like a stray puppy-lost and confused-and that he was off-balance made her feel better about the fact that she was as well. "And this is my house," she said finally, concluding the tour.

Tsukune nodded. "It's a lot different from Castlevania…" he said.

Mizore gave him a blank look. "What is Castlevania?" she asked, cocking her head.

"The headquarters of Fairy Tale," Tsukune explained. "Shisho told me that was the real name of Home Base."

"Oh," Mizore replied. She didn't know how to respond to that, save to ask, "What is Castlevania like?"

"It's a floating castle," Tsukune said offhandedly. "Shisho told me once that it was almost a millennium old."

"You live on a floating castle?" she asked, surprised and quite interested.

"Well, it's more like I'm stationed there most of the time. It's not quite a home."

"How do you mean?" she asked curiously.

"Well, it's really…I don't know… _cold?_ " he replied. "Shisho said that Castlevania was once the home of the most powerful vampire in history, and knowing how lonely it would be to live there alone makes you kind of get why he went mad. There's just something… _off_ about it, like it had seen far too much tragedy to have any compassion left within it."

"Then maybe you could live with us…?" Mizore offered. "Or at least come visit? I'd love to have a friend like you around. You just seem so… _kind._ "

Tsukune's alabaster cheeks flushed at that. "I…I'd like that," he replied honestly. "But I have training to do…"

"Does your shisho give you any days off?"

"First and last Sundays of the month," he replied instantaneously.

"Then maybe you could come visit then?" she offered.

"I'll have to talk to Shisho about it, but I'd like that," Tsukune said with an embarrassed smile. Mizore felt butterflies in her stomach to have made him smile.

When the two eleven-year-olds left the house not necessarily hand-in-hand, but with an aura of comfort around them, Shuzen Akua stepped out of the shadows from which she had watched the entire exchange. Alucard would want to know about this new development.

As Tsukune returned to the landing platform, he bid Mizore farewell and tried his hardest to regain his decorum, once again slipping into the role of mercenary enforcer. He needn't have worried, because his master was right in front of the helicopter's passenger-side door. "I take it you had fun?" Tsukune stiffened in alarm, but his master only gave his unreadable smirk as he lit a cigar with a match. "Come now, I need to be back to base in three hours if I don't want to spend the next eight pretending to listen to Gyokuro bitching at me."

Tsukune nodded, and boarded the helicopter obediently. The aircraft took to the skies as Mizore watched the heavens whisk her new friend back to that awful, lonely castle.

* * *

Tsukune leapt into the shadow at the far end of the room before the fireball hit where he had been but a moment ago. Magic had been involved in their warm-up fights for years now, but in the ordinary course, his master would have ended it by now.

"Heard you made a friend," his master casually threw out.

Tsukune hesitated almost a second too long to dodge the next attack.

"Don't worry, kid. I'm not mad. It's good to have friends at your age. In fact, you _should_ have friends at your age," Miyabi threw out conversationally as beams of energy launched across the room, testing Tsukune's agility and ability to evade. "Which is why I think what your new yuki-onna friend suggested might well be good for you."

Tsukune looked up in surprise, then backflipped to avoid the barrage of energy firing on his yoki signature.

"Don't look so surprised. Truthfully, this egregious oversight was my fault-I was remiss in teaching you almost all the skills you'll need but leaving the most important ones out. The art of conversation, for example. In fact, I think it would be better for you to live amongst the yuki-onna than doing what you have been doing in growing up around a bunch of trained killers and hired guns. You need to at least learn to _pretend_ to act your age if you want to fool Mikogami, let alone Toho Fuhai."

Tsukune focused on not dying as the attacks became more varied, and began to go faster and faster, really testing his yoki control by way of evaluating the upper level of vampiric agility and speed that he possessed.

"However, there is one more thing that I must teach you," his master continued. "You are of the Shinso bloodline, kid, which, in part, means that your ability to transform your body will be high above that of any other vampire. Once you have mastered that final level of yoki control such that the sword reveals her form to you, and sealed that pact between you two with your final test, then you will leave Castlevania to live amongst the yuki-onna for a time until you turn fifteen. At that point, you'll be enrolled at Yokai Academy, and your very first solo mission will commence." With that, he ended the bout. "There is also one more spell for you to learn, but you will not be ready for the strain it puts upon you for a few years yet."

"Hai, Shisho," Tsukune said, bowing.

"Oh, and one more thing: you've got one more challenge to complete before you get to Yokai Academy. It's something you'll want up your sleeve if Mikogami decides to give you any trouble."

"What must I do?" Tsukune asked.

"Well, for one, you'll need to help me create your Holy Lock. Tell me, Tsukune, have you ever heard of the Lords of the Higher Worlds?"

* * *

Tsukune toyed with the brand new Holy Lock upon his wrist as he walked through the neighbourhood that still seemed to be attempting to recover from the massive arson case a number of years ago. The firestarter had not been found, and so many people chose to move. Not so with the Aono family, he noticed; they had never been rich, but the fact that the property value of the entire neighbourhood had taken a nosedive several years prior now made it an almost inescapable cage. This actually pleased Tsukune, because that made them that much easier to find. That's not to say he _remembered_ what had happened on the streets he now traversed years ago, but the route was easy enough to recall.

Having done that, Tsukune took a deep breath and walked up to the door of one of the last houses left on the street. This was to be his final test, and he was almost giddy at the thought of it being over, but he was also nervous; his palm itched to hold the tsuka on his sword, but the time for that was not now; he had to be patient. That in mind, he knocked firmly three times on the wooden door before him.

Within moments, the door had opened, and a very exhausted-looking, somewhat familiar woman stood before him. She looked over him wordlessly for a moment, before recognition flashed through her eyes. "T-Tsukune?" she whispered.

"In the flesh," he replied. "Konbanwa, Okaa-sama."

"Oh, Tsukune!" the woman cried, wrapping her arms around him.

There was a man behind her, and he was stunned in shock at Tsukune in the doorway. He dressed like a middle-class salaryman, and the deep black rings around his eyes indicated a great deal of stress over the past few years. "It can't be…" he whispered. "We had a funeral and… And… you're back?"

"May I come in?" Tsukune asked instead with all the decorum expected of his station. His master's many lessons on etiquette occurred to him in that moment.

The woman nodded, and Tsukune, for the first time since he had been seven years old, stepped over the threshold of the house. Once the door was closed behind him, he walked up to the man he knew to be his father, and moved into his embrace.

Aono Koji's eyes went wide, and he backed away with the blade of a strange sword through his heart. Aono Kasumi looked on with horror as her 'son' slid the blade out of his chest by pushing the body down with the boot…greave…whatever his footwear constituted, and then turned towards her. Paralysed with fright, both at the act of cold-blooded murder that had just occurred, it was child's play to walk up to Kasumi and ram that selfsame blade through her heart.

Both bodies fell to the floor, and blood gushed over the entire front entryway. Tsukune, believing very firmly in the philosophy of 'waste not, want not,' simply summoned all the blood to him and absorbed it. He opened the door and stepped out onto the sidewalk, closing the door behind him, and walking to where his master waited, beneath the streetlight. "Have you thought of what you're going to call her?" Miyabi asked point-blank, looking down at the bloody blade of the duelling sword Tsukune now wielded.

Tsukune shrugged. "Nemo, I guess," he said.

"The Sword Without A Name. Interesting," commented Miyabi as the sword completely dematerialised. "A worthy weapon of a pure Shinso. You have passed the final test."

"Domo, Shisho," Tsukune replied.

"I'll come around to the yuki-onna village to let you practise with how to wield her, but for now, your training in the arts of vampirism is over, kid," Miyabi said, clapping the boy on the back. Tsukune took one more look at his Holy Lock, which wrapped around his left arm. He scrutinised the charm, and smirked to himself when it was still there. He had earned this-had earned his Shinso bloodline-and now could leave Castlevania to live with his new friend, Mizore of the yuki-onna.

* * *

Mizore watched with uncharacteristic fervour as she watched the Fairy Tale helicopter descend to the launch pad. Her friend would finally be here, and here to stay. Her mother watched her with caring amusement. She leapt for joy as Tsukune walked out of the aircraft. His silver hair had been cut to reach just past the shoulders, and instead of that strange leather harness suit he wore when they first met, now he was dressed in ordinary trousers, riding boots, and a long black leather coat over a bare chest. This pleased Mizore-it was as if he had stripped away everything that reminded people that he had once been a transitive operative of Fairy Tale, just for her.

As soon as he had been greeted properly, Mizore ran up with uncharacteristic joy and embraced him. After an instant of hesitation, he returned her embrace, his head buried into her neck. "Okaeri nasai, Tsukune," Mizore whispered.

"Domo," he replied.

The first day together was everything that Mizore had hoped it would be, ever since that Fujisaki man had managed to get the Snow Priestess to agree to let his protege live with the Shirayuki family. Tsukune was a lot less high-strung, but still very nervous and eager to please. He was kind and compassionate, two things that she had always hoped the one destined to be her husband, the father of her children, would be. When she introduced him to her mother, he was polite and cordial, and her mother thoroughly approved of Mizore's taste in 'friends.'

There was something that was… _off_ about him that worried Mizore, though. Beneath the demonic aura that he had as a vampire, there was another strange, multicoloured sub-aura, one that seemed to warp and change the area around him. And the source, she noticed-or at least the point at which that reality-warping cosmic chaos was strongest-was the chain he wore around his left forearm beneath his long coat.

This made her curious, and a curious Shirayuki Mizore had a great deal more stealth at her disposal than the average American spy. Thus, when everyone else in the house was asleep, she crept out of her room and into the guest bedroom, where Tsukune slept on the ceiling, suspended there by what appeared to be nothing. But this didn't stop Mizore for sneaking a peek at what seemed to be the source of the chaotic energy-the locking mechanism of the chain, upon which was inscribed a series of eight arrows radiating from a singular point.

The next day, Mizore, filled with curiosity at what had been done to her friend to make him as he was, she went to the Snow Priestess, and under the cover of confidentiality, she asked after the symbol she had seen. The Snow Priestess had been kind and understanding as she described the Holy Lock he had had when they met for the first time, but as soon as she was asked to draw the symbol that now dangled from his arm, she found that she could not. In fact, looking back, there was almost something stopping her from remembering it clearly. This, she could see, caused some measure of alarm within the Snow Priestess. Mizore tried again and again for an hour, until her head ached with the knowledge into which she could not tap. Finally, she promised to bring Tsukune to her so that the Snow Priestess could see for herself the terrible symbol that her only friend bore.

When she returned home, she looked into the guest bedroom and saw Tsukune still hanging upside down from the ceiling, but no longer was he asleep; it seemed as though he had entered some meditative trance-state. She tried to step out and thus not disturb him, but somehow she had done the unthinkable and made a sound, because the next thing she saw were her friend's catlike scarlet eyes opening and focusing on her with a strange intensity. "Yes?" he prompted.

"I…I just…"

"You wanted to take me somewhere so that you could learn the truth about my new Holy Lock," Tsukune said, his tone conversational and nothing near the malice or offence or suspicion she had imagined he would feel upon learning her true objective. "Isn't that right?"

Mizore nodded mutely.

The vampire dropped from the ceiling and landed on his feet, standing upright. "Then I'll get my coat and we'll go."

"Y-you're not angry?" she asked uncomprehendingly.

"Me? No, of course not," he said while he picked up his coat, letting her ogle the exposed skin on his back. It was tight, lean muscle she saw there, and it seemed to be his entire body that was encased in it. He slipped into the coat, which still left his well-defined abdomen and parts of his pectorals out in the open. It was strange-just yesterday he had been giving off unknown energy in waves, and now it appeared to have halved, such that had Mizore not known precisely how and where to look for it, she would not have been able to see it.

They walked up to the home of the Snow Priestess and sat before her. The Snow Priestess was cordial and kind as always, but that stopped the instant he showed her his Holy Lock. At the sight of it, the Snow Priestess's eyes went wide, and she told Mizore to wait outside, her tone brooking no argument. After Tsukune reassured her, she reluctantly obeyed, waiting outside the sealed room in which the Snow Priestess was talking to her only friend. She waited for an hour, and at the end of that hour, Tsukune stepped out, none the worse for wear. Mizore fixed him with a worried look, but he just smiled at her. It was an unsettling smile, given that his fangs were on full display, but that was only an issue until she reminded herself that her friend was a vampire. "Hey, Mizore-chan, how would you like to take an alternate route home?" he asked, extending his hand-the one covered in complex black markings.

"What do you mean?" she asked somewhat suspiciously.

"Just trust me," he urged.

She nodded slowly, gingerly placing her hand in his. The next moment, she was in Tsukune's arms in a bridal carry. The thought made her blush.

"Hold on," he warned, as massive black bat-wings erupted from his back. He bent down, his wings pointing up in the air, and then he leapt, his wings' downward drive gaining him enough air for him to shoot up into the sky. Mizore just shoved her face into part of his bare chest, clutching at the lapels of his coat as if they were lifelines. "Don't worry, Mizore-chan. I won't let you fall," he promised, his wings beating just enough to keep them in the air. Then his wings tucked in close to him, and she screamed as the suddenly tremendous speed at which they were descending blew the wind through her hair, almost making the experience _too_ real for her tastes.

Then, just before they were going to hit the ground, Tsukune extended his wings again, slowing their descent gracefully and alighting upon her doorstep. He let her down gingerly, her legs wobbling from all the adrenaline that had been rushing through her while in the sky, and helped her into the house, while his wings folded back in on his coat, slipping back into the ether from which they had come. "You okay, Mizore-chan?" he asked with concern. "That was a trick that Shisho taught me about a month ago-transforming my body, I mean. I didn't mean to scare you…" She slapped him across the face, knocking his head to one side. Then, she took his jaw and forced him to look at her, and kissed him full-on.

"That was exhilarating," she said breathlessly. "All the same, let's not do it again."

Tsukune didn't answer save for a dumb nod. It appeared as though he had gone into shock when she kissed him. "Uh, yeah, sure," he said, bewildered. "Won't happen again."

"Domo," she responded. She then tilted her head to the side, exposing her pale neck to him. "Now, here."

"Uh…what?" Tsukune asked.

"You vampires need blood or you get anaemic. Isn't that right?" she said, using his own words against him. "Drink mine."

"Are…are you certain?" Tsukune asked, suddenly all business.

She nodded-well, as best she could with her neck in its current position.

He cleared his throat. "This is my first time," he confessed. "Having blood offered to me, I mean. Shisho always said that being offered blood is a very different experience than taking it, so…"

"It's alright," she said, her voice quiet and soothing. "It's my first time, too."

Tsukune cleared his throat again, shifting his weight from foot to foot. "You're absolutely sure you want me to…"

Mizore, getting tired of her friend's indecision, grabbed his surprised head by the hair and shoved it into her neck. There was a moment of hesitation, and then she felt two pairs of small pinpricks in her neck.

And then her blood began to flow into his mouth. Mizore threw her head back and moaned; she had always been taught that vampire bites hurt, and yet this was hands down the most intimate, erotic experience she had ever had in her young life. The pleasure was making her knees unstable, and so she slumped into his grasp, melting into his hard-muscled body.

Then, all too soon, it was over, and Tsukune pulled away, his mouth still covered in blood- _her_ blood. "Thank you, Mizore-chan. I… I hope it was as good for you…"

She kissed him again, tasting the salt-and-iron flavour of her own blood.

When she pulled back, he was completely speechless-so much so that she spent the better part of the next three minutes trying to get him to snap out of it. Finally, his scarlet eyes refocused on her, and he nodded as they slipped back into the house.

Neither of them noticed Shirayuki Tsurara in the corner, sipping a cup of tea and sighing at the inexperienced passions of young love.

* * *

The Snow Priestess watched the vampire with whom Mizore was so enamoured leave her private chamber, and then slumped down in the seat. When he had come here for their diplomatic meeting, Fujisaki had said nothing about a new Knight of Swords being selected, let alone the boy's being allowed to interact with the precious children of the yuki-onna. She had very few choices-she could tell Mikogami about it, but both Mikogami and Toho Fuhai would probably decide that the new Knight of Swords had to be put down, quickly and by any means necessary, which would likely involve her people being slaughtered in the crossfire, which, given that the population of yuki-onna in the world was already endangered, was unacceptable. She could perhaps go over Fujisaki's head to Gyokuro, but that would likely gain the same response out of her that Mikogami would give. The Knight of Swords was a dangerous creature, cunning and quick, underhanded and sly, and for Fujisaki to back one-Hells, if Mizore was right, he had probably been artificially created by Fujisaki-put her in a bit of an unfortunate position.  
Then again, she had known Fujisaki Miyabi for years, and though he had quite the forked tongue, he had no quarrel with the yuki-onna. She didn't like it, but it seemed that her most rational option would be to just turn a blind eye to the fact that the Knight of Swords was almost literally within striking distance, and hope that Fujisaki knew what he was doing. And she had to admit, while she might not always _like_ Fujisaki Miyabi, he at least always had an agenda, or a plan, or at the very least a motive.

Dammit, she hated this whole situation already.

Her head was beginning to hurt, and so she called one of her handmaidens to brew her a pot of tea. She seriously debated whether or not she should spike it…

* * *

 **AN: And so ends the introductory arc of this story. Next stop: Yokai Academy**


	5. Freshman Year Arc Part 1

Tsukune stepped off of the bus, and with a sigh ran a hand through his black hair. It was a strange feeling, to have his hair shorter than it had been in years. He also doubted he'd be used to having black hair again anytime soon. To him, the colour and cut of it was emblematic of those halcyon days before he was turned into a vampire. Nevertheless, he had been told that he needed to hide his vampiric form at Yokai Academy, and his usual ensemble of relatively long silver hair and blood-red cat's eyes was kind of a dead giveaway. He adjusted the school uniform for about the eighth time since he had donned it that morning; he was more used to clothing in which he could move around with little difficulty, but the rules were the rules.

He was about to move towards the school until he detected a yoki signature coming right at him. With deft timing, he stepped away as the girl on the bicycle rode past. She had long pink hair, and he thought he had caught green eyes. On the bright side, he avoided beginning his day with misfortune; on the other hand, however, he didn't know how long he could take it if this whole mission consisted of him dodging one instance of misfortune after another. He took solace in the fact that Mizore was attending the school as well-although she had gotten here the previous day, a day on which Tsukune was to have his last mission with his master, and so he and his only friend couldn't exactly walk up to the school hand-in-hand, as much as Tsukune might have wanted to. He picked up his briefcase-which was a parting gift from his master-sighed, and began the walk to Yokai Academy's main building.

As soon as he walked in for the commencement speech by the Chairman, Tsukune felt eyes upon him-there was someone trying to read his yoki, and he would have bet his life on the offender being the Chairman. Granted, that was mostly because his master had warned him about the Chairman-Mikogami Tenmei, his master had said the Chairman's name was, and that he was one of the Three Dark Lords-but he knew to be wary of the bound kishin on a purely instinctual level. He scanned the room to find where Mizore was, but when his third eye turned up nothing, he guessed that she was either concealing her yoki-which was a trick his master had taught both of them-or just wasn't amongst the students. He didn't worry, though, because he knew that Mizore could handle herself.

Besides being watched with an inhuman intensity by the Exorcist, the beginning of the day was relatively boring. Had he been back in the yuki-onna village, he would already be in the forests practising at this hour, but such was the occupational hazard inherent to infiltration: one's own schedule was suborned by the need to follow the routine presented by the target. He felt a strange itching sensation on his right forearm-which, if he wasn't mistaken, meant that Nemo hungered to taste the dying kishin's blood and devour his soul-but that was about it. There was a lot of tension in the chamber where he and the other first-year students listened to the Exorcist go on and on, but little else.

Relieved, but somewhat disappointed that his first solo mission was theretofore boring and uneventful, Tsukune carried his briefcase over his shoulder as he walked to his homeroom, and just as he was beginning to wonder where Mizore actually was, she appeared at his side, grasping his arm and staying close by his side. Had this been but a few years ago, this would have made Tsukune flush, but as it stood, by this point, Tsukune and Mizore had lived together for four years, and for two of those years, it had been as lovers. Mizore's grasp on Tsukune's arm wasn't a gesture of fear or shyness, then, but possessiveness.

"And what were you up to?" Tsukune asked with amusement in his tone.

"Taking a tour around campus," she replied.

"But no-one was there to show you around. All the other students were in the gymnasium listening to the Chairman's speech," Tsukune returned.

"It was a… _self-guided_ tour," she amended. Tsukune chuckled a bit at his lover's antics.

Interestingly, Tsukune and Mizore were in the same homeroom, and so, knowing that Mizore would want the window seat, he pulled out a chair for her at the back of the room, and sat himself down beside her. In a few moments, Tsukune sensed the approaching yoki of someone who could only be the homeroom teacher.

Tsukune watched as several seconds later, the door opened and a nekomusume in human form walked in. He only half-listened as she introduced herself as Nekonome Shizuka and then proceeded to talk about the purpose of the school.

"Why don't we just eat all the humans?" asked a male Ayashi near the front of the room. Tsukune could tell from the fact that his aura seemed baser, more animalistic than a purebred yokai, which was a common trait amongst Ayashi-though the level of that kind of primitive yoki often determined what kind and generation of Ayashi they were. This one Tsukune could already tell was far more brawny than he was intelligent. "And in the case of the pretty girls amongst them, molest them?"

"Sextus Tarquinius," Tsukune muttered, but not quietly enough.

"What'd you say?!" the Ayashi bellowed.

"Sextus Tarquinius was the name of the last yokai who thought that way," Tsukune said, but he didn't bother to elaborate further, because at that moment, something else drew his attention after a bit-an approaching source of yoki that seemed somehow quite familiar. Within minutes, the door opened again to admit the pink-haired girl from before, who had nearly crashed into him with her bike.

There was something off about her-she gave off yoki in the approximate range of a vampire, and yet had no demonic aura. He looked closer and saw what was around her neck-a rosario. "Sorry I'm late," she said breathlessly. "I had to talk to the Chairman."

"Oh, that's fine. Just take any open seat," Nekonome-sensei said, before getting back to her 'welcome to school' speech.

* * *

Upon getting to his dorm, he looked around and sighed to himself. "Well, I've seen-and lived in-worse," he said to no-one in particular, and just got down to business, opening the briefcase he carried with him. The briefcase that his master gave him was special, in that it was bigger on the inside than its profile would suggest. Not willing to risk discovery in case the rooms were bugged-his master had made clear that where the Exorcist was involved, it was better to be paranoid than dead, after all-he simply took his clothes and put them in their proper place. He took his favourite books and put them on the room's shelf, and organised what he'd need. But he didn't remove the false bottom to the briefcase-the compartment that held his 'work clothes'-and instead set about organising the room to his satisfaction.

Once he was done with the room, he returned himself to his vampire form-the humanoid one, at least-and then walked to the far wall, up it, and into the centre of the ceiling. There, he sat, closed his eyes, controlled his breathing, and began slipping into a meditative state.

That meditative state escaped him, however, as he sensed two yoki signatures outside the window of his dorm, and both heard and sensed the distress coming off of one of the two. He could even tell who they were-it was that brunet brute from Homeroom and that pink-haired ditz from earlier. Tsukune sighed in irritation and decided that if he wanted to be able to meditate anytime soon, he would have to deal with the attempted rape in progress. To that end, he dropped to the ground and went over to his window to peer out at the situation.

Luckily, the tree that the pinkette had her back against cast a sufficiently dark shadow for him to shadow-walk there. Picking one of the deeper shadows in his room at random, he walked into it-

-and out at the other side of the tree, which just so happened to put him directly behind the brunet brute.

"So, I see you've taken my side-note about Sextus Tarquinius a bit… _literally,_ " Tsukune said drily. "Unfortunately for you, you have interrupted my meditations, and so I would like you to leave."

The brute ignored him, but when Tsukune grabbed the arm with which he was about to continue his violation of the pinkette, the brute looked over his shoulder and tried to fix him with an intimidating glare. It was unfortunate for him, though, that the one attempting to stop him had seen far deadlier glares, and so was largely unaffected by the brute's attempt. "I really must insist that you cease," Tsukune said politely.

"Fuck off!" the brute said, trying to tear his arm out of the grip that held it there, but the grip was like iron, and the brunet began to wonder if taunting him was a good idea.

To put it concisely, it wasn't.

The brunet shouted in pain as he clutched the bloody stump that had been where his arm had been connected to his body. "I did warn you. Incidentally, what's your name?"

"S…Saizo…" the brute spat. "Komiya Saizo."

"Saizo," Tsukune repeated. He kept his face calm, burying his irritation in an imitation of his master's often disinterested looks that terrified and intimidated the people around him. "It fits you. Listen, Saizo-bo. I _really_ don't want to have to kill you over this, if for no other reason than the fact that I could be doing literally _anything_ else instead of wasting the time necessary to beat you into a pulp. So why don't you just run along and find a knife to castrate yourself with, or whatever you third-rate Ayashi do in your spare time."

"You won't get away with this…" Saizo hissed. "You're _dead!_ Do you hear me?! _Dead!_ "

"Okay, so I'm going to do the both of us a favour and skip over the whole 'better men have tried' bit in favour of saying that I look forward to your failure, Saizo-bo," Tsukune said conversationally. Saizo turned to walk away, and was in fact several metres away from them when Tsukune once again noticed the weight in his hand. Oh, right! He _had_ ripped that off, hadn't he? "Here. Let me give you a hand!" he cried out, throwing the detached arm at Saizo, the momentum of which threw Saizo off-balance and faceplanting into the dirt. Tsukune then turned his attention to the pinkette, who was looking at him with an expression of absolute gratitude. "I don't believe we've been properly introduced," he said politely, holding out his hand in greeting. "Aono Tsukune."

"A-Akashiya Moka…" she stuttered. She looked up into his eyes when his entire body tensed up.

"Akashiya…Moka?" asked Tsukune, as if he had just been informed that Zimbabwe had started a nuclear war with Spain. "As in the only daughter of _the_ Akasha Bloodriver-sama?"

She blushed. "Yeah… But how did you know…?"

"I spent more than five seconds in a room with Akua-nee," Tsukune deadpanned.

"A-Akua?" Moka asked, her eyes wide.

"Yes. Shuzen Akua. The one and only." Tsukune sighed. "And I just let someone who tried to molest you walk away alive. I'm going to be hearing about _that_ one later…"

"That was a very kind thing you did regardless," Moka said. "I…thank you."

"You're very welcome," said Tsukune, bowing. "If you ever find yourself in need of allies or friends, just ask. I'm sure Mizore will be happy to help out as well."

Moka's cheeks flushed anew, and she began to stutter, but Tsukune took it all in stride and walked back to his room, hoping that he could get a good, solid hour of meditation in before anything else interrupted him.

* * *

Dinner took place in Mizore's room, with Tsukune preparing the food. It had been one of the things that Akua, of all people, thought it important that he learned-the ability to cook. After half an hour of playful banter between the two of them, dinner was ready and served. Mizore, as unfortunately perceptive as ever, asked him point-blank, "How was your day?"

Tsukune grimaced. "Tumultuous. My meditation was interrupted because I had to deal with an attempted rape right outside my window, and then found out that the victim was actually Akashiya Moka."

"Akasha Bloodriver's daughter?"

"The same," Tsukune replied. "Itadakimasu!"

"Itadakimasu," Mizore said as well before continuing. "Is she okay?"

"Would I be here eating with you if she wasn't?" Tsukune rejoined. "I don't care where Akua-nee is or what she was doing. If I let Moka get hurt, she will look for me, she _will_ find me, and she will kill me."

Mizore giggled a bit.

"How is it?" asked Tsukune. "The food, I mean."

"Delicious, as always," Mizore said. Then she suddenly looked down.

Tsukune paused. "Is there something wrong?" he asked.

"N-no… It's just…" Mizore cleared her throat before she continued. "It's been a week…"

Tsukune's eyes widened. "O-oh, you mean, since we…"

"Yes," said Mizore.

"You know, Mizore, if you don't want to do it while we're at school, I can just go get a blood bag from the school nurse's office…" Tsukune trailed off as Mizore looked at him with steel in her eyes.

"No," she said. "I'm the only one you're allowed to take blood from." With that, she tilted her head to the side, exposing her neck.

"I-if you're certain," said Tsukune carefully, slowly coming over to her side of the table.

Impatience seized Mizore, and she took Tsukune's head in her hands and pressed it into the crook of her neck. Tsukune resisted for a moment, but she was right in that it _had_ been a week since last he fed on her, and she _did_ seem to enjoy it, and so he simply gave into his baser instincts, letting his fangs elongate and puncture her neck.

As Tsukune drank from her and Mizore felt her life-blood leave her, she also felt the familiar euphoric sensation radiate throughout her body as she simply enjoyed the thought of being so close to her only friend-the man she loved. When Tsukune pulled away, blood dripping from his fangs and the corner of his mouth, she took two fingers and wiped away some of the blood, and then stuck her blood-soaked fingers into her mouth to taste herself.

The taste was salty and metallic, but she watched as Tsukune's eyes went wide and began to turn red at the sight, and that gave her all the satisfaction she needed from the incredibly intimate act. She pulled Tsukune's head closer to her own, and their lips met in a kiss.

Hours later, Mizore woke in the dead of night to Tsukune leaving her bed. She knew that he would have to do that while they were at school-he needed to get back to his own dorm, of course-but she hadn't anticipated how much it hurt to have happen. She knew she would miss awakening to him in her arms in the early hours of the morning, his usually stiff and masklike expression of neutrality softened into that of a young boy who had had a great deal of power shoved into him very quickly-who had never before her known the tender touch of one who loved him even nearly as much as she did. She loved watching him sleep, as it was the only time he seemed to be truly at peace. As far as she saw it, she had two options. Luckily, the mail order form said 'three to five business days', and so with any luck, she wouldn't have to resort to Plan B. She didn't like Plan B very much.

* * *

Tsukune barely paid attention as Nekonome-sensei droned on and on about the human world-his master had taught him all he needed to know about the world of humans and the world that yokai inhabited, every disagreement and every bloody, senseless war that ensued. Even so, he _was_ absorbing the information-just not paying active attention. He wondered at Moka, sitting in front of him and to his right, and wondered at how much the pink-haired girl reminded him of the paintings his master didn't know he had seen. He supposed that if she _was_ Akasha Bloodriver's daughter, then that explained who was in the paintings, but by the same token, even as family resemblance went, Akashiya Moka looked unnaturally similar to the many depictions he had seen of her mother.

Saizo was absent, which at least made Tsukune exhale and relax into thinking that the second day would at least be nowhere near the first day in terms of the level and number of little annoyances that would build up until he just needed to get away and meditate for a few hours. When the work began, he had no problem completing it-his master made sure to keep him a few years' curriculum ahead of where he would have been were he still human-which allowed him to make short work of it and still have enough attention to other things that he was not immediately pulled out of his reverie.

For Moka's part, she could not resist sneaking glances at her saviour from the previous day. His black hair was done in a fashionable style, and every so often some of the sable locks would come down to cover up one of his brown eyes. Their gaze was ceaseless and direct, and more than a little cold at times, but Moka still felt herself being drawn in by them, almost against her will. There was a certain… _power_ in his gaze, and his every step was sure, confident, indicative of a violent past. Her inner self characterised it as the gaze and step of a trained soldier in her analysis of his carriage. Sitting next to him was a rather attractive girl with purple hair and what looked like a lollipop in her mouth, and every time his gaze slipped to her, all the coldness and the formality in his eyes melted away into an expression of warmth, fondness-maybe even love.

 _I am assuming the girl is the 'Mizore' we were told to ask for help if we needed allies,_ her inner self said. _Yuki-onna by the feel of her yoki._

 _Then what is Tsukune?_ Outer Moka asked Inner Moka.

 _Vampire of some sort, clearly… More than that, I cannot say. It is like there is a veil that is confusing my abilities around him. My advice would be to tread carefully._

 _But he saved us…!_

 _One good deed does not make him any less potentially dangerous. Caution is the wisest course._

Outer Moka sighed; her inner self could be so very paranoid sometimes…

As for Mizore, she was jubilant to have Tsukune with her, but was for once happy that his attention was directed elsewhere; it would be awkward to explain why she was finalising the plans for the placement of hidden cameras in a floor plan that looked remarkably similar to Tsukune's own.

"...And as practise for coexisting with humans, you are all going to be required to join a club for club activities!" Nekonome-sensei announced.

All three of the distracted teenagers whipped their heads around in a unified "What?!"

"Yes! There's a club fair later today!" the nekomusume said joyously.

It should be mentioned that as of a few months prior, Tsukune had shown himself to be prone to developing migraines when caught in high-stress, low-danger scenarios. This was one such scenario.

* * *

A few hours later, the part of the day that Tsukune had come to dread the most was upon them. He had planned on meditating on the ceiling for a few hours, doing the pittance of paperwork that had been assigned as homework, then going over to Mizore's room and having dinner with her in the surprisingly intimate space that was her dormitory. Having to pick a club not only resurrected his headache problem but also disrupted those plans, which, in turn, vexed him to a great degree.

Tsukune was a vampire, and so the swimming club was not an option-even though he half-remembered that he had been quite the little swimmer during his human days. Not to mention, he was not the kind of person to be taken in by scantily-clad high-school girls in swimsuits, especially since his third eye alerted him to the fact that they were mermaids in disguise, and Tsukune was in no hurry to be devoured by the famously-carnivorous yokai.

The next was represented by someone who was hitting on Moka; his self-preservation instinct flared up, and he went forth to disengage the pink-haired vampire from the rather amorous man's-werewolf's, he corrected himself-attentions. "Aono Tsukune," he said by way of rather abrupt introduction, holding out his hand.

"Morioka Ginei, though most of my friends call me Gin," he said, shaking hands.

"Oh! I see you already met Gin!" called Nekonome-sensei. "Gin here is a sophomore, and the president of the Newspaper Club, for which I am the advisor."

"Ah, a journalist?" asked Tsukune, cocking a brow. " _Quis custodiet ipsos custodes_ , and all that?"

"I have to confess, I'm more of a Voltaire sort of guy than I am a fan of Iuvenal," Gin countered. Tsukune felt his respect for the werewolf grow-now if only he weren't so forward with his…actually, what _was_ Moka to him? Half-sister? Probably, yeah…half-sister, then.

"You know what? Sure. Sign us up," Tsukune said. Then, to Mizore, he said, "Only if you want to, of course."

"Well, I _did_ always kind of want to be an investigative journalist," Mizore confessed. "So if you want to join the Newspaper Club, I will, too."

"Okay," said Tsukune. "Moka, do you want to join, too?" Akua-nee would probably appreciate him looking after her other sibling-and, if the relationship that had existed between his master and Moka's mother was anything like it seemed to be, probably his stepsister as well.

"...If you want to, sure," said Moka quite cautiously. Tsukune sensed tension radiating off of her.

"Only if your inner self approves, of course," Tsukune assured her.

Moka looked at him with wide eyes. "How did you…?"

"The rosario," Tsukune said. He then held up his left arm and rolled up his sleeve, showing the chain of the Holy Lock he wore at all times. "I'm quite familiar with different bindings-what they are and what they can do-so you can call it a very educated guess."

"Oh…well…" she said, looking down at the rosario. "She says yes, too."  
"Excellent," Tsukune replied. "Put all three of us down for the Newspaper Club, then."

Gin nodded, his once-lecherous eyes now filled with and exuding nothing but the utmost in professionalism. "Welcome aboard," he said.

It was at that moment that Tsukune knew things were about to get very complicated.

It wasn't that Tsukune hadn't known she was there, but rather that there was only one girl who drew his honest and most heartfelt attention, and she wasn't her. But now he sensed her yoki signature coming directly, purposefully down the corridor. Tsukune looked up reluctantly.

Kurono Kurumu wasn't the sort of person who made herself easy to ignore. From the way she flaunted her rather large breasts and well-proportioned physique, it seemed as though she knew and took for granted that she looked like a horny, hormonal teenaged boy's wet dream. But even though Tsukune had to acknowledge her physical beauty, she did not even cause him to look twice at her-in part because his third eye immediately set off his mental klaxons when he realised she was a succubus, and in part because his feelings towards the yuki-onna who wrapped herself around his marked right arm were so intense that he felt no inclination to look elsewhere. But now he couldn't ignore her, because she was stalking down the hallway looking very much like she was on a warpath, her harem of useless males following her and worshipping the ground she walked upon-the sad part was that Tsukune sensed she was only using her allure to ensnare anywhere between a quarter and a third of them; the rest were just naturally willing to be her slaves. Tsukune, who agreed with his master that there was no sight more sickening than a creature that allowed itself to be utterly consumed by its appetites, found their almost canine subservience nothing less than absolutely revolting-and that was _knowing_ what he did about succubi, which allowed him to see that this was simply naivete on Kurumu's part, not motivated by a will to dominate or control, the presence of which would have heated his Holy Lock to the point where it scalded and branded his skin.

All the same, when he felt her begin to use her allure on him, he used his third eye to neutralise it and its enslaving effects. One of the benefits of his Holy Lock was that it allowed him to violently sunder any time of mind control used on him-but that was for emergencies only. One did not call upon the power of the Knight of Swords lightly. That, and to unveil such an ability this early on would defeat the purpose of having such a trump card secreted away, quite literally up his sleeve. Kurumu scowled. "Which club is this?" she asked, stopping before Gin.

The werewolf gave her a lecherous grin, but whatever had gotten her this irate had to have been quite intense, for she didn't seem to even notice, her usually bubbly voice-an affectation, most likely-curt and clipped and cold. Before he could begin to tell her, though, she looked at the register and added her name. Tsukune sincerely hoped that it wasn't anything he did that had vexed her so, if only because he absolutely _hated_ tangling with illusionists. True, his third eye allowed him to see through the lower-level illusions that the average practitioner of the Mesmeric Arts had at their disposal, but natural-born illusionists like succubi who held any degree of proficiency in the art could render the ability of a vampire to use their third eye to ascertain the truth of the situation entirely inert, and that was a coin he really, _really_ didn't feel like flipping.

Gin, however, was the only person who seemed to be in a good mood despite the cold war raging right in front of him, and he was in this good mood for two reasons: the first being that the Newspaper Club had received such an influx of new blood, and the second being that at least the group dynamic was going to make the new school year _interesting,_ if nothing else. Hell, Gin was already debating the merits and demerits of starting a betting pool, winner-take-all, on the subject of how long it would take for the new tensions in the Newspaper Club to erupt into an all-out bloodbath.

* * *

Akashiya Moka slipped from behind the building to in the bushes, and then from the bushes between the trees, which was the best vantage point she could find that would not be instantaneously compromised by either participant looking up. She held her rosario in the palm of her hand for luck; she knew she couldn't remove it by herself, but holding it reminded her that no matter how alone, or in this case, out of her depth she was, her inner self would be right there with her. Of course, her inner self was of the opinion that her current course of action could in no way be interpreted as her 'treading carefully,' but aside from that, she felt justified in her choice to spy-no, no, _conduct reconnaissance_ -on the couple that had offered her their help the day before.

The pair were attired in loose-fitting clothes- _clothes easy to manoeuvre in,_ her inner self remarked-as they stretched in the forest clearing. Tsukune wore a pair of hakama, but nothing else. There were strange markings on his right forearm, but what immediately caught her gaze was the musculature of his back. Truly, his school uniform did not do justice to how lean and compact with muscle fibres his body was. _The mark of a warrior,_ her inner self noted. Moka turned her gaze from Tsukune to his opponent, whose choice in attire was baggy and inexpensive on the whole, and Moka could not shake the feeling that she dressed like that when not in school.

No sooner did Moka take this all in than did Mizore's hair become made of ice, her hands enlarging to great claws of ice. _Her true form,_ Inner Moka whispered. In contrast, Tsukune remained precisely as he was. _Could it be that he's…human?_ Inner Moka asked for a second. _No, it can't be. Normal humans don't go around wearing Holy Locks. They're hardly a fashion statement. And not to mention, look at his forearm. A human wouldn't be able to get a mark like that and be likely to survive the experience…_

The area's temperature plummeted, and there came from the trees a number icy figures that moved in a fashion rather disturbingly similar to that of a marionnette. Tsukune, however, took a ready stance that Moka had never seen before. It looked as though he was readying himself to leap into the trees-his centre of mass was low, his legs coiled, and he seemed ready to ascend. In a moment, he was no longer on the ground, and a line of bright blue fire cut off the ice puppets' advance. The flame springing to life almost made Moka jump. _Don't get any closer. That fire could be anywhere between 1,995 and 3,000 degrees Celsius-that's enough to melt steel to a liquid._

Outer Moka nodded, glad that at least one of them had gleaned something useful from the many chemistry classes she had had over the years, and continued watching. As soon as she did, a great fork of lightning descended from the heavens and destroyed the ice puppets. Trying a different tactic, Mizore began throwing knives made from ice, but that seemed to halt at a certain point in the sky. Moka followed their path, and surely, there Tsukune was, standing perfectly balanced upon the end of a tree branch. His hand was held out to the knives of ice, and once they had stilled, they shattered and were fired back at their sender. Mizore leapt backwards to avoid them, and instead sent a much larger ice knife into the base of the tree Tsukune was fighting from. The great, centuries-old tree's trunk was cracked in the centre, and Mizore seemed to use it to rip the tree right down the centre, but there was suddenly no sign of Tsukune. Mizore began throwing disks of ice in every direction, but soon enough, Tsukune appeared right behind her and embraced her.

After her initial start, Mizore relaxed into Tsukune's arms and began laughing with him, almost breathlessly. She spun to face him, grabbed his face in her hands and kissed him while she leapt up and coiled her legs along his waist. They went falling back into the grass of the clearing, their lips still locked together passionately, and suddenly all Moka felt was a profound sense of awkwardness watching such an intimate moment play out. She backed away slowly and as stealthily as she could, but one line out of Tsukune gave her mind pause, if not her body-for the tone, if not for the words. "I guess this is my win," he said, playful and suave-almost cocky.

As for her mission in following the pair into the woods in the first place, the evidence was, in a word-much to the frustration of both Mokas-inconclusive.


	6. Freshman Year Arc Part 2

Mikogami Tenmei was a touch concerned. No, that was putting it too lightly. Mikogami Tenmei was _troubled._ Yes, that was quite a bit more accurate. To put it more precisely, the attendance of a single student gave him enough misgivings to end the ritual of marriage forever. That student's name was Aono Tsukune.

A number of years prior, the Exorcist had gone forth to find humans worthy of acting the bridge between the world of humans and the world of yokai so as to complete Akasha's vision of a world where humanity and monsters coexisted. One of the two humans selected was named Aono Tsukune, and he had been chosen for his unusual compassion and determination.

And then, eight years ago, he had promptly up and vanished off the face of the planet.

To say that Mikogami had been displeased that someone had gone and interfered with his master plan would be to put it lightly. Every time he sent out feelers to try and locate the boy, they had turned up nothing. This had continued until Toho Fuhai had stopped him, saying that one human would have to do. Mikogami had been quite irate, but in the end, took his old friend's advice and tried to make the best of it.

The point was that Mikogami had long since given up looking for Aono Tsukune, especially considering his parents' murder four years ago, two years after the mysterious arson in that same neighbourhood. And so when he saw Tsukune's name on the enrollment register, he had the distinct impression that he was being fucked with.

A little research into the Aono boy's circumstances told him that somehow, someway, he had wound up living with the Shirayuki family of the yuki-onna. Any attempt at digging further than that was fruitless. So Mikogami tried to make the best of a-well, not _bad,_ per se, as yuki-onna didn't tend to be hostile towards humans, but certainly _confusing_ -situation, and contacted the Snow Priestess, asking her politely why the location of Aono Tsukune had not been reported to him immediately upon its discovery. The exasperated response he got in return served as a very pointed warning that things were not quite as they seemed to be.

He had hoped that he would be able to glean from Tsukune himself where he had been for the past eight years, but that hope, too, was dashed, as when he attempted to get a discreet read on the boy during the welcome speech, all he had gathered from the attempt was a headache. It was as if something was protecting him from being analysed-something that scrambled the data and made it into something totally unrecognisable.

And then he got the reports coming in from the first two days of school: not only had Tsukune maimed Komiya Saizo-which wasn't exactly a _bad_ thing, and certainly made Mikogami's life less of a constant series of chronic headaches-but also had, assumably, been responsible for the sudden spike in magical energy on campus that day.

Now, at least at first glance, the latter occurrence was a good thing as far as Mikogami was concerned, as it helped narrow down what exactly had happened to Tsukune, and what he had become after eight years spent _in terra incognito,_ as it were. However, upon further scrutiny, it didn't make much in the way of sense. The only person he knew of who could have any hope of teaching Tsukune, who was not a natural-born witch or warlock (and yes, contrary to popular belief, there _was_ a difference between the two), how to use magic was none other than Toho Fuhai, who had been as perplexed as he was as to how a seven-year-old human child had managed to slip through their fingers and disappear.

This left Mikogami with a set of data that suggested large gaps in his knowledge and comprehension of the current situation. First, Aono Tsukune had had to have become some sort of yokai himself if he had developed the ability to use magic-barring Hermetic magic, of course, which anyone with enough brains and sacrifices could do-but the kind of yokai he was was unknown to Mikogami. These two data points ran into conflict immediately, because the kind of yokai who _were_ able to hide their type from someone like Mikogami were either more or less dead or not naturally able to use magic, and certainly never to the extent that Mikogami had sensed earlier that day..

And then there was the fact that he wore a Holy Lock, the inner nature of which had been impossible for Mikogami to discern. This confused Mikogami, because there were only three people he had known who could produce a Holy Lock, namely himself, Toho Fuhai, or-back when he had been awake, at least-the Shinso Alucard, who was well-known to have been otherwise incapacitated for the past two hundred years. And yet, for Tsukune to be bearing a Holy Lock that made him unable to tell what variety of yokai, he was reminded him of back when Alucard had been trying to explain to the other three of them-Fuhai, Tenmei, and Akasha-how a Holy Lock could be used as an aid either in turning humans into vampires, or in concealing one's yoki, and thus their true nature, entirely. That was, of course, centuries ago, back before Akasha had met and fallen in love with Shuzen Issa, back before Alucard had become the hate-filled monstrosity he was today, back when the four of them were inseparable.

Mikogami blinked twice, somewhat amused and somewhat irritated that he had allowed his thought process to digress to such an extent that he was actively reminiscing about those halcyon days when their little group was a unit-the four of them against the world. This seemed to be happening more and more often, which reminded Mikogami of the fact that his time was running out. Sealing away Alucard had taken too much out of all of them-Toho Fuhai spent his time as a stooped old man even as far as two hundred years later because of all the energy they had used in trying to restrain and subdue the rampaging Shinso.

And there he went again. Back to Tsukune- _you're not dead yet, man,_ he thought to himself. _Keep it together…_ On the subject of Tsukune, reports said that he seemed immune to the charms of their succubus student, Kurumu, and that he and Mizore were very close-lovers, in fact, some rumours insisted.

But this told him nothing. He sighed in frustration and walked over to one of the great windows that lined the walls of his office. The sky was overcast, which meant that the blood-red moon wasn't visible.

It was the perfect kind of night for those whose skills lay in chicanery, cunning, and just general wrongdoing-thieves, spies, and assassins.

* * *

The room wasn't bugged. Tsukune had swept the room nine times, and found neither sign nor indication of any kind of surveillance device. Feeling much more secure in his ability to act with impunity on his first solo mission, Tsukune locked the door and shut the window in his single room as he removed the false bottom of his extradimensional briefcase and took out the custom black long coat his master had given him. Now that he was alone, Tsukune dropped the pretense of appearing to be no different from any human, his hair turning silver and growing to his shoulders, his fangs elongating, and his eyes turning blood red. Then he tapped into his Shinso powers, encasing his body in a suit of natural armour that far outstripped the defensive qualities of steel plate. Donning the black long coat overtop the armour to obscure his figure, he at last took the mask out of the briefcase and fitted it to his face. The mask was a custom replica of the first mask he had worn on his first mission, back before he appeared to be no more than a normal human child of eight years. It was white and expressionless, with a red slash on the bottom near where his chin went, almost like a mouth, and a stylised purple lightning bolt over the right eyehole. That done, he walked into one of the shadows in the corner of his room-

-and wound up stepping out of the shadows in the school's main building.

Using his third eye, Tsukune swept every floor of the school, and, finding that the building was all but empty-the keywords being 'all but'-Tsukune decided that staying out of sight was not nearly as important as staying under the radar was. And so he smothered his yoki signature, and began to move through the school. Unfortunately, he couldn't keep his yoki smothered and still be able to shadow-walk, and so he resolved to do this the old-fashioned way, and made his way on foot throughout the school, every so often stopping to carve a symbol into the walls of the main building, taking care to keep in mind that the symbols needed to be both out of the way so that they wouldn't be discovered too early, and easily accessible so that they would be on hand if and when he needed to use them.

Floor by floor Tsukune went, carving symbols into the walls where they would pass unnoticed. The symbol itself didn't mean much to the uninitiated, which was precisely what he was counting on. When he got about halfway through the top floor, however, he stopped.

There, at the threshold of his office, was the Exorcist himself. He stared directly at Tsukune with his glowing eyes, but instead of the mischievous little smile that was usually there, now he was quite clearly frowning. "You know, you're very good. I almost didn't notice you." Tsukune stared at him wordlessly through the eyeholes of his mask, knowing that all the Exorcist would see were black pits where his eyes should be. "And it's quite an exemplary trick, masking your yoki. In fact, the only reason I knew you to be here was because you took a split second too long before you concealed it. Now, though, it's past curfew, so I'm going to have to ask you to remove your mask so that the appropriate disciplinary actions can be taken."

In response, Tsukune melted into the shadows, where he could use his shadow-walking ability to give himself an edge.

"So, you want to do this the hard way, huh?" asked the Exorcist, sounding more tired than anything else. If Tsukune hadn't lived through the last eight years of his life, just knowing that Mikogami Tenmei _existed_ would have terrified him, and the Exorcist's exasperation would have seemed genuinely intimidating to him. As it stood, however, all he saw when he looked at the Chairman was an old, burnt-out fighter who sought to prolong his life with Holy Locks. The fact that said old, burnt-out fighter was still an S-class yokai didn't even phase him; he'd taken out S-classes before, and when the fact that he was covered in three Holy Locks was taken into account, Tsukune hypothesised that taking Mikogami down would not be especially difficult.

With that in mind, he conjured discs of dark energy and began throwing them, causing Mikogami to gain some distance-and put him right next to another shadow. Tsukune took advantage of this and secured a line around Mikogami's legs before slipping back through the shadow, pulling Mikogami off of his feet. Once the Exorcist got back on his feet, Tsukune pressed the advantage he had just made for himself, coming in quickly with hard and fast punches so that the old kishin would not be able to regain his footing so easily.

Cognisant that the last thing he wanted to do in a match against a fighter as experienced as the Chairman was to slip into a pattern, Tsukune feinted a punch, but then dropped low and swept Mikogami's feet out from under him. Tsukune sprang back up, grabbed Mikogami by the collar of his white robes, and threw him face-first through the floor to the next level down.

Changing tactics, Tsukune stepped through one shadow on the top floor to one on the floor immediately below it. He could sense Mikogami's yoki grow more and more out of control, like a midsummer blaze, and knew that he would have to be more careful. Two hundred years past his prime or not, Mikogami Tenmei was still one of the Three Dark Lords, and so with that in mind, Tsukune frantically tried to construct a plan of attack.

The first phase of the fight had been relatively simple only because Mikogami thought him just another student, perhaps one suffering from a moderate to severe case of chunibyo, and not a trained, if a bit green, assassin. Tsukune knew what he was doing when he capitalised upon that underestimation, and attacked him not with his armour-plated body, but with the Exorcist's own complacency-a complacency born of him being secure in the notion that there was no one who dared attack him given what he had done two hundred years prior. The Exorcist had left himself open to attack through his complacency, and Tsukune had punished him for it. It was now, when the dying kishin had begun to take him and this fight seriously, that things got awfully dicey, and more than a little dangerous.

Tsukune checked what he had. There was a list a mile long of spells-combat spells, utility spells, cantrips-that were at his disposal. He had his ace in the hole, which he was only supposed to use in case of emergency-which this fight had yet to devolve into, but he liked to keep his options open anyway-he had kunai of maybe a dozen different metals and alloys, he had more lines, which he wanted to use only sparingly because the gossamer thread that his lines were made of wasn't cheap by any stretch of the imagination, he had his martial arts training, and he had Nemo. That wasn't exactly a short list; the problem was that it also wasn't exactly an inexpensive list. He had no doubt that Nemo would consider the kishin to be a worthy foe to be used against-in fact, he felt Nemo quiver in anticipation of being used to fight his current opponent, which was a strange sensation given that Nemo was not physically manifested, and so the sensation of her vibrating could be felt in Tsukune's very soul. She hungered for Mikogami's blood, his very soul. Unfortunately, the process that seemed to be required to obtain it and thereby sate her hunger was far, _far_ too dangerous for Tsukune to at all feel comfortable risking, at least at this stage in the game.

One thing he _did_ have that he could use with relative impunity was the discipline of obtenebration. He had that, at least. And with that came an idea. And if he was lucky, he would be able to escape relatively unharmed and unharried.

* * *

The lights went out, and the corridor was plunged into complete darkness. Were Mikogami Tenmei in any fit state to do so, he would question his opponent's motives-after all, it wasn't like he didn't have night vision. His eyes _glowed_ , for heaven's sake, and besides, what kind of self-respecting S-class yokai _didn't_ have the ability to see in the dark? Again, were he in any fit state to do so, Mikogami would have to laugh at the pure lunacy of it all.

But Mikogami Tenmei was _not_ in a fit state to do so. His pride had been wounded, and it cried out for vengeance, which was unfortunate, because had he been paying enough attention, he would recognise a few things about his current opponent-things he hadn't seen in nearly three hundred years. But as it stood, he was nearing his berserker state at a frightening speed, and as such not in a fit state for reason, rationality, or simple deduction. He tried desperately to reign himself in, as he knew in the back of his brain-the part that still cried out for patience and observation if not civility-that if he allowed himself to be goaded into his berserker state fully, then he would lose as certainly as the snow on Mount Fuji.

Somewhere in his enraged mind, he noticed that it was getting steadily more and more difficult to walk. His opponent was up to something…

* * *

 _Damn it, he's getting suspicious. I have to lure him in…_ thought Tsukune as he examined the situation. His scheme, he knew, was truly harebrained and he was not at all certain that it would even slow the kishin down, let alone stop him as it was supposed to. Even so, he wouldn't find out if he didn't try, and so he moved to get the Exorcist's attention, throwing three silver kunai and four cold iron at him. The still-robed yokai quickly acknowledged the direction from which the kunai were coming, and began to charge, his sanity hanging by a thread and not even close to being in control. It appeared to Tsukune that his plan would work flawlessly, but at that moment, as if the entirety of Murphy's Law was dropped onto his shoulders, Tsukune fucked up, for lack of a more apropos phrasing.

Years later, Tsukune would still not be able to pin down exactly what went wrong; the most he could do was narrow it down to two things. Either the realisation of victory being in his grasp caused him to hesitate for a few crucial picoseconds, or he had made a slight miscalculation concerning the length of the Exorcist's stride, but the next thing he knew was that a punch slammed into him with all the force of an out-of-control lorry carrying live ammunition to the allied front. He felt the horrible sensation of his steel armour cracking, and then had the dreadful realisation that not only was it giving, but that there was enough force behind the punch to keep going into his side, pulverising his organs.

Tsukune's eyes went wide behind the mask, and suddenly his blood coated the inside of it as he vomited it. He was barely able to utter the word to cause his trap to snap closed before he hit the wall and left a sizeable crater in it, leaving his head feeling fuzzy and heavily concussed. He got to his feet with a Herculean determination, and then, with what little focus he had left, summoned the sword.

The weapon now known as Nemo was a strange one to many who looked upon it; as his master had explained, she had taken on the form of a duelling sword. His master's precise words after explaining that to Tsukune were something along the lines of "An elegant weapon from a more civilised age." Her tsuka was black, but her blade was the colour of the reflection of the moon in a motionless pond. Her length came out to one metre exactly, and unlike tachi or katana, the curve to the blade was very slight, and the blade itself was only sharp along the outer edge. It was this blade that came into being in Tsukune's grasp, hungry for battle and the thirst for blood.

Taking the closest approximation to a proper stance he could manage through the pain of his injuries from which his blood seemed to flow still, even as the wound worked to close itself, Tsukune charged into the Chairman, the kissaki of the blade pointed directly at the Exorcist's body, which was bound up in an intricate spider's web, the strands of which were formed out of darkness itself.

His aim, however, did not account for his injuries. As he came close, the blade shaking in his grasp and nearly blinded by pain, the blade stabbed through the Chairman's chest, missing his heart by a hair's breadth. Tsukune realised his mistake, and instead of trying to hit the heart a second time, he pulled Nemo, drenched in blood, from out of the kishin's body. Once she was free, Tsukune spun and slashed through where he supposed the Exorcist's hamstrings might be to cut off the Chairman's ability to pursue him, and thus discover whose face lurked behind the porcelain mask, blowing his cover and causing his first solo mission to end in failure. That done, Tsukune stumbled and shuffled back to the nearest shadow to take to Mizore's room. He couldn't help speed up the regenerative process, but, as he had learned time and again over the past four years of their lives, she could.

* * *

Mizore was almost asleep herself when she heard Tsukune step out of the shadows and into her room in the middle of the night. His step was light and almost inaudible, but over four years of living together, she had developed an ear capable of hearing his footsteps. He walked in a bit, and promptly collapsed against her wall. The yuki-onna was wide awake in record time, and walked over to the wall and turned on the light switch so that she could see the kind of shape her lover and only friend was in. She gasped in horror at the extent of the damage.

The first thing she noticed was the gaping hole in Tsukune's armour, which continued into the approximate area of his vital organs. It looked as though he had tried to 'tank' a .50 calibre bullet from a state-of-the-art military sniper rifle at point blank range. What was worse was that the wound was not regenerating as it should have been. Or perhaps it was, and the original wound had been much worse. Regardless, Mizore knew on sight that whatever the wound had looked like originally, he probably wasn't going to make it anyway, what with the tremendous amount of blood he was losing. No! She _refused_ to let it happen-to let Tsukune fade away and die this night.

The first thing she did was to put pressure on the wound so that it would stop bleeding, but apparently, too many of his organs had been ruptured, because all she got for her efforts were hands stained black with his blood. It was no good. Without his ability to regenerate, it seemed that his wounds were just too extensive for him to survive the night, even with proper medical attention.

Mizore, however, contrary to her surname and her appearance, was no shrinking violet, no gormless flower to sit and wilt away while the one she cared about the most in the world suffered and died. Mustering up her determination, she gingerly removed the strange mask he was wearing, and almost had to look away as she saw how ashen his face looked-how sunken his scarlet eyes, how limp his silver hair. She bore it, though, because her lover's life now depended on her fortitude and will to act. She took his head gently in her hands and directed it to the crook of her neck. "Drink," she commanded, managing enough self-control to not allow her voice to waver. The fact that he did not resist made her more worried than anything else about this horrifying situation; normally, he was hesitant almost to the point of stubbornness to drink from her.

When he bit down on her neck, she bit back a cry of pain. This was not the erotic experience she had come to associate with Tsukune's occasional feedings. Iit lacked the intimacy of the act, lacked the unhurried familiarity she had grown accustomed to experiencing. This was desperate, almost animalistic, but she cared not; she cherished the pain all the same.

He drank deep, deeper than he ever had before, as if he was desperate to get more and more into his body, and Mizore spared a thought to remark to herself that if she was indeed bearing witness to the true magnitude of his need for blood, then he had been disengaging without getting even half the blood he truly needed out of fear for her safety. Filing that little uncomfortable realisation away for a later date, she watched as the more he drank, the faster and faster the wound began to mend itself and close, and when it was entirely healed, it left not even a scar behind.

He eventually pulled away, and when Mizore looked down at her lover, she was relieved to see that the blood she had given him had been enough to save his life, as his face began to lose its gaunt construction and ashen skin, his silver hair regaining its vitality and the eyes becoming no longer sunken deep into their sockets. Of course, he went limp a moment later, but Mizore remained calm enough to ascertain that it was sleep he needed now, and that he was no longer in grave danger of dying.

Having discovered this, she, with some difficulty, stripped him of the strangely heavy black leather long coat and managed to get him up and into her bed. She stowed the mask and the coat away beneath her bed so that it would not be discovered by the wrong person, and then slipped into bed beside him, just holding him until the gentle and weak light of morning came.

* * *

Mikogami Tenmei was exhausted. His whole night after he had calmed down sometime around an hour after his mysterious assailant had made his exit had been spent attempting to find his way out of the ingenious trap that assailant had left him in the previous night. If nothing else, the trap was A-grade work, if only because he had managed to fall for it. Of course, his enthusiasm for the excellent trap began to diminish rapidly as he was forced to humiliatingly crawl back to his office, given that neither of his legs were able to support his weight. But finally, he had managed to get into his chair and send out a call for assistance to his once-best friend to whom he had not spoken physically for at least half a century by this point.

Just when Mikogami was beginning to think that perhaps his friend wasn't coming, there was a polite knock on the door. "Come in," Mikogami said.

A short old man opened the door and strode into the Chairman's office. His hair was long and white, and it seemed that every minute patch of exposed skin was home to a new system of wrinkles. His ears were long and pointed, and a pair of sunglasses adorned his squat face, while even then a long, eastern-style pipe rested in between his jaws. The man in question the Exorcist recognised immediately as Toho Fuhai, doing much the same thing Mikogami himself was with his Holy Locks in attempting to suppress his energy enough to prolong what little time he had left on this earth. "Was there a reason you called me all this way away?" the crotchety yasha asked curtly, reminding Mikogami that he and his friend hadn't been on good terms ever since Akasha merged with Alucard.

Mikogami nodded, his mischievous smile nowhere to be found. "I encountered someone sneaking through the school after hours," the kishin began.

"Probably a student on a dare," Toho Fuhai scoffed in his whiny, gravelly voice.

Mikogami shook his head. "No… If it had been a student, then we wouldn't be having this conversation, in all probability," the Exorcist said with some degree of authority. "A student could not have left me unable to walk the way this intruder did." He sensed Toho Fuhai's eyes widen behind the circular sunglasses, and took it as his cue to continue. "I need two favours from you, old friend. First, I need you to heal my wounds"-Mikogami gestured to the wound on his chest that was weeping blood even still, staining his usually impeccable white robes-"and then I need as much information as you can give me about this invader.

Toho Fuhai walked around Mikogami's desk and then helped him out of the ruined white robes in order to better get a look at his injuries. Looking at them from afar, they seemed to be normal, run-of-the-mill injuries-although any weapon that could harm one of the Three Dark Lords was hardly anything approaching run-of-the-mill-but up close, they gave even the great Toho Fuhai pause. "How were these wounds inflicted?" asked the yasha with a tone suggestive of growing dread as he continued to examine them for some hidden detail, almost as if their very existence terrified him.

"The intruder had a sword," said Mikogami. "Strange-looking, like the result of some odd mesh between Eastern and Western smithing philosophies."

Toho Fuhai was silent for a long, pregnant moment. Then he returned his attention to Mikogami's injuries, and when again he spoke, he began in a carefully neutral, level tone. "I'm afraid this is beyond my skill to heal, Tenmei," he told his friend of three hundred years. Before the kishin could ask, the yasha raised a hand for silence. "This intruder. What can you tell me about them? Clothes, demeanour, everything."

"He looked like he was making a fashion statement," began Mikogami. "And it _was_ a he. Wore a long leather coat. Black. Under that, he was wearing a full set of armour. Also black."

"Was he wearing a mask?" Toho Fuhai asked. "A mask of wood or porcelain that renders the eyes impossible to see?"

"Yes," Mikogami confirmed. "Why…?"

"It was the Black Swordsman," Fuhai interjected. "Wielder of the Black Sword."

"How do you…?"

"No other weapon inflicts injuries that can subdue even a kishin's regenerative power," Fuhai explained. "No other weapon possesses the malice and power necessary to accomplish such a feat. And no other weapon chooses its wielder the way the Black Sword does."

"Well then," said Mikogami. "I'm sure you'll be happy to know that I managed to wound him. A punch to the lower abdomen nearly put him on the ground."

"Very good. You inflicted a mortal wound. That's step one," Fuhai joked mirthlessly as he continued to take stock of the damage. "What about two through ten?"

"There's one more thing I can remember about him," Tenmei said at last. "When he fought me, it was like when Alucard and I would spar, back before that whole mess two centuries ago. And his armour… It wasn't like armour at all. It was more like…an exoskeleton." Mikogami paused, and when there was no response forthcoming, he looked to his friend, only to see him with a stricken expression on his face, his pipe hanging out of his mouth limply.


	7. Freshman Year Arc Part 3

Tsukune awoke to the light of the grey morning upon his closed eyelids, and the first thing he knew of as wakefulness exerted itself upon him was the warm body curled up next to him in the bed. For a moment, he wondered where he was, but then the little…'adventure' from last night came crashing into his brain, and he could suddenly explain to himself why his lower-left abdominal region felt like it had been pulverised with a croquet mallet wielded by Kokoa. Unfortunately, he could not remember much after arriving in Mizore's room, his wound refusing to regenerate having caused him to black out a few times from loss of blood and thus causing his memories of the event to become faded, dreamlike, and sometimes quite contradictory; but as he came to, he realised what that strange aftertaste in his mouth was-

-Mizore's blood. And from the sheer strength of the aftertaste, a lot of it.

"So, where did your precious mission take you that you return to me in the state you did last night?" Mizore asked conversationally, but Tsukune knew better. He knew that once the horror passed, the anger would be left to him to defuse-and he knew from the myriad little tells she had just exhibited in both her tone and her body language, she was _fuming,_ and it would take a _lot_ of make-up sex to make up for no doubt terrifying her the previous night. Still, until that time, he would tell her the truth.

"I was trying to get the lay of the land-put in a network of escape routes," Tsukune explained. "And apparently I didn't suppress my yoki quickly enough, because no sooner was I halfway finished with the top floor of the main building than the Chairman shows up."

"You didn't…" Mizore hissed. Tsukune flinched-an angered Mizore was a very dangerous person to be in a bed with, even armoured as he was. Speaking of which…there. The armour, the very thing that might have protected him from Mizore's rage, was gone.

"Okay, I admit, I punched a bit above my weight class with him, but…"

"You. Went to fight one of the Three Dark Lords. On your own," Mizore bit out.

"Well, to be fair, the vast majority of his strength was sealed behind three layers of Holy Locks, so I assumed he wouldn't present an insurmountable challenge." Tsukune tried not to gulp as he felt Mizore's eyes almost begin to bore through him. It was ridiculous-his master and Akua-nee both were professional killers, and yet it was the piercing stare of his fifteen-year-old lover that made him genuinely afraid. "And besides, I only got injured because I miscalculated. I hesitated. I underestimated the length of his strides. One of those. Not because he's indestructible in the slightest."

Mizore stared at him for a few moments, then rolled atop him, her backside situated firmly on his hips, and pinned him. She looked him in the eyes, deathly serious. "Aono Tsukune, do not _ever_ do something like this again, or I swear, I _will_ make you pay, even if I wind up having to bring you back from the dead to exact my revenge. Do you understand me?"

"Yes, Mizore-sama," he breathed.

"You're damn right," she said as her face bloomed into a hungry, predatory grin.

Luckily, homeroom was a veritable maelstrom of activity, what with the Chairman having been crippled in the middle of the night, and so they were able to slip in half an hour late without anyone noticing Tsukune's limp, or the fact that Mizore's puncture marks seemed very obviously fresh-that is, anyone whose name was not Akashiya Moka.

 _How brazen are they to come walking in here this late and still smelling of sex?!_ her inner self raged. Outer Moka had very little opinion on the matter-she only cared that Tsukune was the first at Yokai Academy to show her genuine kindness, and that when Tsukune was with Mizore, he seemed content, even happy. The fact that her inner self was nursing a serious case of jealousy over the fact that Mizore got to have Tsukune all to herself really wasn't her problem, as callous as that might sound. Inner Moka was prideful, cruel, arrogant and possessive-four things noticeably absent from her counterpart.

Though in many ways, Inner Moka was the more experienced of the two-more jaded, more focused, more coordinated-in just as many ways, she was only a spoiled child who wanted what someone else had and wanted it right then and there, with no regard for the needs or happiness for anyone else. Only her own-and occasionally her outer counterpart's-satisfaction in any way figured into her decision-making process at all. She was selfish, standoffish and abrasive, with no regard for anyone but herself-and this was, at least in part, because such qualities were prized highly in vampire society, and in many ways, her unbearable level of self-obsession was ideal for that kind of social contract. Inner Moka was thus considered 'strong' and Outer Moka considered 'weak.'

Outer Moka, however, knew the truth. Inner Moka _was_ strong-she was assertive, charismatic and confident-but it was the strength of iron, brittle and easily broken.

Outer Moka may have been more outwardly childish than her inner counterpart, but she was adaptable and frightfully perceptive, and that was what they needed right now-to stay under the radar and avoid making enemies, not to make a number of them through her inner self's borderline-narcissistic insistence that it be her way or no way at all. And so Outer Moka remained quiet even as her inner self raged at her to let her out.

Nekonome-sensei soon brought the class to order and began to call roll, and Moka sat back into her chair to suffer through another day at war with the desires of her more insistent other half.

* * *

Believe it or not, Alucard had been having a relatively pleasant day before his heir called. He had taken a holiday from his duties at Fairy Tale and was enjoying sitting on the deck of the cruiseliner he had booked his vacation on, even _if_ the wine was absolute swill. The briny air of the sea and the waves crashing against the sides of the ship lulled him into a rare sense of peace. That peace was rudely interrupted when Alucard sensed his heir's astral projection out of the corner of his mind's eye. _What is it, kid?_ Alucard asked in a casual, calm tone of thought, though he bit back a sigh at the loss of the moment.

 _So, I kinda went and found out why your enemies are called the 'Three Dark Lords,'_ Tsukune sent.

 _In other words, you got overconfident and let Mikogami get the better of you?_ Alucard asked, sighing aloud. _I thought this might happen. Don't sweat the fact that the old bastard refused to die. Your survival against him is a wonderful indicator of your own competence and general usefulness._ Then Alucard thought for a moment. _Wait, just what were you_ doing _such that you ran afoul of Mikogami? The man's become a veritable pacifist from what I've heard._

 _I…_ may _have set out an escape route…or seventy-six…_

Alucard pinched the bridge of his nose and groaned aloud. _Tsukune, are you_ trying _to open a path to the Realm of Chaos? Do you have_ any _idea of how much damage you could do by letting even a single wave of chaotic energy slip through?!_

 _Don't worry. I can absorb it,_ Tsukune thought back.

Alucard thought of the massive black monstrosity of a creature sitting in the depths of Castlevania. _You will do no such thing!_ Alucard snapped. _I will not lose you to the politicking of the Lords of the Higher Worlds!_ Alucard took a deep breath, and considered that perhaps moments like this were the cause of his sudden quest for solace at the bottom of a bottle. _I see you don't have any idea of how dangerous and reckless this is. Tell me, kid, how much do you remember about reactions on a subatomic scale-specifically the difference between nuclear fusion and nuclear fission?_

 _What, in that both release energy, but you get more from making bonds instead of breaking them?_ Tsukune asked, somewhat confused as to where Alucard was going with this. Alucard rolled his eyes and mirthlessly chuckled. All the training in the world could not change the fact that his heir was only fifteen years old.

 _Very good. Now, imagine you could split concepts-split space itself-and that it works in relatively the same way. What would be the corollary?_ Alucard guided him patiently.

 _The corollary would be that splitting them would release a sizeable amount of energy, but what…_

 _The Realm of Chaos and the Prime Material Plane. Do you know what humans call that fission?_ Alucard mentally bit off before Tsukune could go further down that track. _They call it 'the Big Bang.' Now, consider that the Big Bang is an instance of conceptual_ fission _, and what do you get?_

 _...Oh…_ thought Tsukune.

 _Yes. Every time you inscribed that sigil onto a wall, you provided an anchor for a portal to the Realm of Chaos. And if there are enough portals to the Realm of Chaos, especially in a dimensionally-ensconced area such as Yokai Academy, there is a high chance that something will serve as a catalyst to create an instance of conceptual fusion. The release of energy and the destruction of subspace would be catastrophic. And no, you can't get rid of them; that will destabilise the entire array. Just…don't make more of them. For all our sakes._

 _Yes, Master,_ Tsukune replied.

Mercifully, the transmission ended there. Alucard stood from his seat and went to see if the cruise-liner's bar had anything stronger than the wine. He felt as though he was going to need it, and soon.

* * *

Tsukune winced as he poked at the patch of his abdomen where his wound would have been. Newly-regenerated tissue was always strangely sore, like it hadn't fully fallen in with his body's natural rhythm quite yet. The fact that Mizore had said very little to him that day told him that she still wasn't happy with him over the previous night's…misadventure, and so, deciding discretion to be the better part of valour, he had quickly swiped his effects from her room and brought them into his own. He was engaged in the process of equipment maintenance-a vital step for any assassin or otherwise covert operative-when he perceived of Akua's astral projection in the corner of his room.

 _Konbanwa, Onee-sama,_ thought Tsukune. _I assume you're here for something?_

 _You look like shit, ototo,_ she said bluntly.

 _Take a punch from one of the Three Dark Lords at point-blank range and_ then _say that to me,_ Tsukune thought with a scoff.

 _Remind me to tell you about my last battle with Toho Fuhai,_ thought Akua with a smirk. _Anyway, there's a matter that's just popped up. The First Subdivision-that's you and me-have been assigned to deal with it. I'll fill you in on the way._

 _Who's the handler for this op?_ Tsukune asked, his mind shifting fully into professional mode. _Shisho?_

 _Dame,_ Akua replied. _I am. You're the only field operative we're deploying on this. Grandfather thinks it's something that Gyokuro wants to be kept hush-hush. You'll understand when I explain the op, don't worry._

 _No pressure,_ Tsukune joked bitterly. _My girlfriend's gonna kill me…_

 _You let_ me _handle Shirayuki-san. Just keep your mind focused on this. If Gyokuro wants this buried the way Grandfather thinks she does, it's bound to be something big._

 _Understood,_ said Tsukune as he imagined a carapace of steel encasing his body. He donned his harness and utility belt, his leather coat and his mask. He then walked into the corner of his room that he kept shrouded in shadow, and then stepped out of the shadows at the edge of campus-specifically, a cliff. He dove from the cliff, and then unfurled his wings, letting them gain air and glide before flapping them with powerful strokes as he travelled.

 _Okay, I'm en route. Fill me in, mission control,_ Tsukune thought to his surrogate sister.

 _The target is a Fairy Tale facility. Fronts as a pharmaceutical company. The lab is based in Northern Kanto. I'll give you the coordinates in a minute._

 _What happened?_

 _No idea. Orders are to purge the place, and then torch it. Queen Bitch wants nothing left, not even ashes._

 _Acknowledged._ Tsukune hated missions like this one-they made him feel like nothing but an attack dog for the organisation he had worked for for half his life. It wasn't a good feeling. But he was a good soldier, and even if he didn't trust Gyokuro-the 'Queen Bitch', as it were-he trusted his master implicitly.

He found himself in the vicinity very quickly, and began to look around for tunnels through which he might reach the AO. Akua guided him to one, and he masked his yoki as soon as he came out the other side-on a deserted road in the middle of rural Japan. He homed in on the facility and plotted his trajectory for entry-labs, and Fairy Tale labs especially, were more often than not sealed to prevent outside intrusion. The only way around this, in Tsukune's experience, was to enter through the roof. And so he gained altitude, only to then fold his wings and plummet down through the skylights.

The first thing Tsukune did as he came in for a landing was engage his third eye, which was fortuitous, because the instant he hit the ground, several _somethings_ leapt out of the darkness and attacked him.

Tsukune found himself hard-pressed to analyse the monsters' anatomy-psychological profiling was much quicker to give him results, those results being that the creatures were absolutely feral. There was one that might well have been a dog at some point, and he sensed very different biologies belonging to many different creatures within the lab.

He used his kunai and his martial arts training to keep them off of him as he analysed them, searching for a weak spot. The creatures were… _marred_ somehow-violated and made mockeries of in the purest, most literal possible sense. He could feel the _wrongness_ of their ki, like it was being tainted, twisted and warped to create some unholy Lovecraftian abomination.

It wasn't long before Tsukune noted that, to his very perplexed alarm, his kunai weren't having much of an effect; given that he had brought his alchemical silver kunai, which was supposed to negate the regenerative ability of most all yokai, it was quite alarmingly strange that these mindless, slavering creatures seemed able to shrug off his-very expensive-weapons. Cursing himself for not bringing the silver-edged lines, though the longer he fought, the more he was certain that wasn't going to help, Tsukune quickly thought to change tactics-though, to be perfectly candid, the decision was more to do with the fact that one of the dog-like creatures had leapt up and secured itself around his forearm. In any case, the dog-creature found itself ablaze with bright, electric-blue flames. With an unearthly whimper, which had more in common with iron nails scraping a chalkboard than an actual animalistic sound of pain or terror, the creature found that its immunity to the metals that would normally incapacitate its ilk did not extend to fire-or, at the very least, to magic. Tsukune could only hope that was a weakness inherent to all the monsters that seemed to have overrun the facility.

Moments later, Tsukune found himself amidst a room filled with bright blue fire, which had caused the monsters-whatever they were-to flee as they realised that the magical fire could in fact hurt them. _The fuck were they researching here?!_ Tsukune exclaimed through his link to Akua. _Only thing they seem vulnerable to is magic! That presupposes an A ranking, at least!_

 _It doesn't matter. Just get in, raze the place and kill every mutated dog that stands in your way._

 _Bull. You can't be any more in the know about this than I am!_ Tsukune sent back as he leapt to avoid a sudden rush of tentacles headed straight for him.

 _That's irrelevant!_

 _Irrelevant my ass!_

Akua sighed, and Tsukune was summarily informed for the second time that day that it was possible to sigh when communicating telepathically. _You know what? Fine. Cleared it with Grandfather. Just swipe as much in the way of data as you can, and get out of there alive, you hear me?_

 _Loud and clear, mission control,_ Tsukune thought back as a tentacle shot past him, which he grabbed with hands ablaze with wytchfyre. _And be sure to thank Shisho for me._ With that, he allowed the wytchfyre to spread and consume the strange, many-eyed and many-limbed lump of flesh that seemed vaguely similar to a kitsune-from a tertiary perspective, of course. The _thing_ shrieked its soul-wrenching agony at such a high and unnatural frequency that hearing it was causing Tsukune actual psychic pain. He put it into a box in the back of his mind as he started throwing wytchfyre at will, the soul-consuming flames making quick work of many of the loathsome creatures, as Tsukune made his way into the laboratory proper.

Making his way to the nearest computer, he palmed one of his special flash drives and inserted it into the computer, recognising his access credentials as identical to those of Shuzen Gyokuro-cyber warfare was one of his master's later lessons, and no one, save the mysterious Masked King, had higher administrator access than the Queen Bitch herself. He skimmed some of the data that streamed past the screen at an amazing rate as the entirety of the archived files on the lab's computer database downloaded themselves onto his flash drive, and the keywords that he kept seeing were enough for him to get curious-but it wasn't that good kind of curious; it was that sick to your stomach feeling of foreboding curiosity. As he paid attention, over and over again it mentioned 'mutagen,' 'Alucard cells,' and 'test subjects.' This was enough to set off an instantaneous red flag in Tsukune's head, and suddenly, he had a good idea of what happened in this lab.

 _Mission control-what is 'Alucard'?_ Tsukune asked with a growing feeling of dread as he walked amongst the shards of broken glass that seemed to have exploded from large, cylindrical tanks.

The response seemed to come after a period of hesitation. _...Why?_

 _Because if I'm right-and it seems like I am-this lab was meant to explore how so-called 'Alucard cells' would interact with preexisting, well-documented physiologies,_ Tsukune sent back as the data transfer completed, and he walked to eject his flash drive and leave. He snapped his fingers, and behind him the lab's oxygen condensed and then ignited with explosive force. Summoning his wings, he crouched and leapt with a powerful downstroke of his wings, and then, as a finishing touch, he threw a ball of blue fire large enough to cause the rest of the lab to be engulfed in unquenchable magical flames.

* * *

It was in the wee hours of the morning in which Tsukune returned to Yokai Academy, exhausted, as flying for long distances tended to do. He thought about going to Mizore's room and slaking his thirst for blood, given the high amount of calories flight burned, but decided against it, believing that despite Akua's assurances to the contrary, his girlfriend would be absolutely livid that he had gone on a mission without explaining to her _in person_ why he had to cancel. Thus, he decided he would go over some of the more troubling files on his flash drive.

Pulling his laptop from the extradimensional briefcase, he started it up and waited for the OS to finish loading. Once that was finished, he inserted the flash drive into the USB port and waited for the computer to decrypt all the files, confidential or not, on the drive. Once that was done, he began pulling the database apart. Everything was there: experiment notes, chemical compounds, DNA structures-everything that one would imagine a top-secret research branch to possess, all laid out.

All the same, there was something missing. Even though the notes referred to 'Alucard cells' more than once, sometimes several times in the same paragraphs, there were no notes on the acquisition of the experimental resource. All that Tsukune could gather from the smorgasbord of data laid out in front of him was that these so-called 'Alucard cells' were highly, _highly_ mutagenic, and so it seemed as though his initial evaluation was correct. He had been facing down the results of the experiments the scientists were running on the strange cells, and the closest he could come to a conclusion was that these scientists were, for some reason, studying the 'Alucard cells' for the Queen Bitch herself. And given the intent behind some of the more casual notes, they perceived the introduction of Alucard cells as 'augmentation', making Tsukune think immediately of super-soldiers-and monstrous as the initial results were, the test subjects _were,_ in fact, both faster and more durable than their constituent races would suggest, so in a sense, Tsukune was forced to acknowledge that the results, while horrifying, were also quite promising, in a sick, twisted sort of way. At any rate, he had to admit that were he in the Queen Bitch's place, he might well authorise more in-depth study on the strange tissues that had turned yokai into abominations. In fact, the facility was only considered a failure because the containment procedures were not thorough enough-he could gauge that by the protocols and the layout of the lab.

And yet, nothing on the flash drive gave him so much as an _inkling_ of just what Alucard cells were.

Groaning in frustration for the nth time after the nth consecutive failure to find a note that defined 'Alucard cells', Tsukune decided it to be time to face the music, as it were-because somehow, that single mission had warped his mind to the point where ceasing to avoid a quite likely furious Mizore seemed to be the lesser of the two major current stressors in his life. The fact that he hadn't thought his decision through thoroughly enough became immediately apparent when he shadow-shifted into Mizore's dorm. Immediately when he did so he was hit with a massive splitting headache, only to then realise that every surface was covered in ice, every piece of furniture torn to its constituent parts, several of which bearing the tell-tale sign of a Jigen-to. _**Damn**_ _it, Akua! When you said you'd handle it, I didn't expect to return to a war zone!_ he thought to himself as he made the adequate adjustments to the lowered temperature and relative ruination of the room.

If Mizore were human, it would be child's play to locate her through thermal imaging of the room. However, given that she was a yuki-onna, that option was quite effectively off of the table, and so he merely blocked out all other sounds save her heartbeat. That, at the very least, she could not willfully hide from him. However, the act of doing so put him ill at ease-tracking prey by their heartbeat was much more his master's _modus operandi_ than his own, after all, and he always thought it was a bit stalker-y, and _not_ in a good way. Nevertheless, he _needed_ to find Mizore, if only to make sure she wasn't dead. Akua was not known for showing mercy.

Eventually, he found her, prone on the floor and unconscious. The fact that her heartbeat upon closer examination was as steady as it seemed from a distance told him that the damage done to her may well have been superficial-save for the blow that knocked her out, that was.

Sighing his resignation to the fact that all of Akua's methods _did_ contain at least a smattering of violence of some degree of brutality, he sat down on the cold floor and brought Mizore's head into his lap, content to wait until she awoke so that they could discuss what had happened. While he did this, he contemplated beginning a high-stakes poker game against himself before eschewing the idea as being ridiculous and unfeasible-ditto on chess-and so he set a mental set of fifty-two playing cards and began playing a game of blackjack with himself, as blackjack only required one set of facts to be present, and an element of randomness that he found easy to replicate by using part of his mind to continue generating random numbers.

By the time Mizore's eyes opened to gaze upon his face looking down at her, he had won four games, lost sixteen-it seemed the house _did_ always win-and long since turned to card-counting as an exercise in mathematics while playing a mental game of mahjong. Not that he was a Sinophile or anything-he just liked the game for its simplicity. "T...Tsukune?" Mizore asked quietly.

"Yes, Mizore-ai?" Tsukune replied, tabling his mahjong game but keeping the counting of cards going in the back of his head.

"You're here… You're alright…"

"Yes, that I am," he replied.

"She said you would be, but I didn't believe her…"

"Well, now you know what happens when somebody openly doubts _anything_ Akua says. She automatically assumes you're accusing her of lying and summarily takes it as an insult, and she punishes insults with extreme prejudice," Tsukune explained with a mirthless little laugh that told her he was speaking from experience. And now, having experienced Shuzen Akua's rage as she had, she could do the same.

"I was so frightened for you…" Mizore said somewhat defensively.

"Mizore, my father told me something a long time ago: I was created to be the perfect vampire, and I carry that title for a _reason._ I can take care of myself," Tsukune said, and then laughed as he comprehended the enormous irony of the situation at hand. "So please, don't worry about me." He brought her up to the level at which he could embrace her properly, and then continued. "Mizore-chan, no matter what happens to me, I will _always_ return to you. Okay?"

She nodded mutely.

"Good," concluded Tsukune as he slowly helped Mizore up to a seated position, and then, after standing himself, he helped her the rest of the way onto her feet. "Now, let's get this dorm room back together. I'd imagine we have our work cut out for us, but with a lot of lubricant and a little effort, all things are possible."

"Like anal sex?" Mizore deadpanned.

Tsukune sighed, placing his face in his hands. "Yes, Mizore, like anal sex," he replied. "Walked straight into that one, I suppose…"


End file.
